The thirty eighth day of Lent: Sorting

After a meeting with my new colleague sorting stuff and how we will work together, I’m moving my day off most weeks from now to a Friday. And of course it is raining!! 

My study in this manse is not the biggest, and I’ve a huge library of books and resources and papers I have to reduce as I can’t currently get in the room. I love books and I know some ministers don’t have many now as they read on line but I cannot not have a proper book in my hand to dip into or lose myself in. Some of my books are in crates as I quickly ran out of shelves.

Perhaps as we contemplate entering the drama of Holy Week, we need a spiritual sort out of what we need to flourish and we need not to be frightened of chucking some things out or - GULP - taking some books to the charity shop.

 The Holy Week journey is the most important part of our relationship with Jesus. I don’t have church meetings this week of any sort. I need the time to slowly journey without distraction. I am not good at sorting stuff and it takes forever as I pick up books or service sheets and stand there and read them rather than get on. God is good. In a very large crate I’ve thrown paper into to go through one of the first things I found were some Holy Week services of mine of old. I haven’t much time to think about writing services this weekend so perhaps in the mess I was meant to find them. 

I just wonder whether we need to ask these questions:

What do I need to sort in order to follow better?

What can I throw away or leave behind? Or what should I? 

What treasures as I sift through my life and my things will God bring back to my attention? 

Let’s not be scared of a good sort out. We need to enter Jerusalem and the rigours of Holy Week with energy and focus. It will be draining but invigorating. Honest! 

The thirty seventh day of Lent: Darkness

We had a Lent group tonight looking at darkness. Jesus died in the dark.  In the middle of day, when the sun was supposed to shine, from noon to three, a deep darkness shrouded the whole land.  The sun wouldn’t shine.

Just as, “In the beginning,” when the earth was a dark, formless, chaotic mass, before God said, “Let there be light,” as Jesus hung on the cross, the earth was plunged, once again, into chaotic darkness.  Which is strange, because Jesus came to be a light in the darkness.  At Christmas, we read…

• “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned.” (Isaiah 9:2)
• “The light shines in the darkness ,and the darkness has not overcome it.” John 1:5)

Yet, that Friday, it seemed darkness had overcome the light, overwhelmed the light, snuffed out the light.  The light of the world – the innocent, sinless, Lamb of God, who came to take away the sins of the world – was crucified by evil.

They’d conspired.  They’d told lies.  They’d taken advantage of the weakness and greed of one of Jesus’ own trusted inner circle.  And, now, the miracle worker and so called, “King of the Jews,” was defeated.  Darkness won, or so it appeared. How do we cope with life’s dark moments? 

 It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, for the sun stopped shining. 

 

If Scripture teaches us anything, it’s that God is with us when darkness crashes over us.

Martin Luther King preached, “We must also remember that God does not forget his children who are victims of evil forces…  When the lamp of hope flickers and candle of faith runs low, he restoreth our souls, giving us renewed vigour to carry on.  He is with us not only in the noontime of fulfilment but also in the midnight of despair.”

And, in his final moments Jesus said, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.”   When he had said this, he breathed his last.   At last, at about 3:00 in the afternoon, his ordeal was over.  The Son of God was dead.  For the moment, darkness defeated the light.

—————

Think ahead to Easter, something has happened in the darkness. In the darkness of the tomb, something wonderful, something hardly believable, something earth-shattering, has happened. Jesus is no longer there; he has been raised and is on his way to Galilee.

While so much of our focus is on the light, let us not forget where it all began.

As Barbara Brown Taylor writes in Learning to Walk in the Dark, “As many years as I have been listening to Easter sermons, I have never heard anyone talk about that part. Resurrection is always announced with Easter lilies, the sound of trumpets, bright streaming light. But it did not happen that way. If it happened in a cave, it happened in complete silence, in absolute darkness, with the smell of damp stone and dug earth in the air.... new life starts in the dark. Whether it is a seed in the ground, a baby in the womb, or Jesus in the tomb, it starts in the dark.”

As Christians, we are prone to talking about dark versus light— more specifically, to see the light as a conqueror of the dark. But to pit the two against each other is to miss the ways God is present and working in both.

The thirty sixth day of Lent: Song of the Three

I did the devotions at our Circuit Meeting tonight. I used Song of the Three Young Men set as a canticle in the lectionary today. This is the prayer of Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, the three young men who praised God after they had been placed in the midst of the fiery furnace during a persecution of Jews in Babylon, as told in the Book of Daniel. It is a thanksgiving prayer, said by all three after having been saved by God. It’s a liturgical hymn of praise, a poetic expansion of the doxology that was sung in the Temple when the holy name of God was pronounced.

I have set the agenda for Circuit Meetings in the past and have wanted them to have a focus. That’s not my role in this appointment and I wanted to sit in the back row! I began the meeting by reminding those gathered why we were there: to commend Jesus and to remember the holy name of God who is blessed and with us and is our motivation. 

It’s a lovely prayer. You might like to use it to say thank you at the end of the day. You may not have faced a fiery furnace today but there will have been trials you have escaped today by the grace of God.

   

1 Blessed are you, the God of our ancestors, worthy to be praised and exalted for ever.

          

2 Blessed is your holy and glorious name, worthy to be praised and exalted forever.

          

3 Blessed are you, in your holy and glorious temple, worthy to be praised and exalted for ever.

          

4  Blessed are you who look into the depths, worthy to be praised and exalted for ever.

          

5  Blessed are you, enthroned on the cherubim,  worthy to be praised and exalted for ever.

          

6  Blessed are you on the throne of your kingdom,  worthy to be praised and exalted for ever.

          

7  Blessed are you in the heights of heaven, worthy to be praised and exalted for ever.

          The Song of the Three 29–34

The thirty fifth day of Lent: Pleading

It was a joy to be in the church in Sharow tonight to hear The Crucifixion by Stainer. This bit really got to me:

Jesus, the Crucified, pleads for me, 
while he is nailed to the shameful tree, 
scorned and forsaken, derided and cursed, 
see how his enemies do their worst! 
Yet, in the midst of the torture and shame, 
Jesus, the Crucified, breathes my name: 
wonder of wonders, oh, can it be? 
Jesus, the Crucified, pleads for me!

Lord, I have left thee, I have denied, 
followed the world in my selfish pride; 
Lord, I have joined in the hateful cry, 
slay him, away with him, crucify! 
Lord, I have done it, oh! ask me not how; 
woven the thorns for thy tortured brow; 
yet in his pity, so boundless and free, 
Jesus, the Crucified, pleads for me!

"Though thou hast left me and wandered away, 
chosen the darkness instead of the day; 
though thou art covered with many a stain, 
though thou hast wounded me oft and again; 
though thou hast followed thy wayward will; 
yet, in my pity, I love thee still." 
Wonder of wonders it ever must be! 
Jesus, the Crucified, pleads for me!

Jesus is dying, in agony sore, 
Jesus is suffering more and more, 
Jesus is bowed with the weight of his woe, 
Jesus is faint with each bitter throe. 
Jesus is bearing it all in my stead, 
pity incarnate for me has bled; 
wonder of wonders it ever must be! 
Jesus, the Crucified, pleads for me!

Pleading: it’s like when we were a child we screamed “please please let me have that” or when we got in trouble we shouted to be saved from danger. 

What does Jesus pleading for us on the cross mean? It means despite who we are, he intercedes for us to God, he bears our sins, he takes our place, he says to God “don’t abandon your children, forgive them and love them.” He sticks up for us when there is no one else to stick up for us. He reconciles us to God. That’s what atonement means. 

Have you ever prayed a pleading prayer? We all make a mess of things and sometimes we need saving. If you are there today remember Jesus on the cross for you pleading for you to God and maybe pray this prayer of Jeremiah which is most powerful in the Authorised Version of Scripture:

“O Lord, though our iniquities testify against us, do thou it for thy name’s sake: for our backslidings are many; we have sinned against thee. O the hope of Israel, the saviour thereof in time of trouble, why shouldest thou be as a stranger in the land, and as a wayfaring man that turneth aside to tarry for a night? Why shouldest thou be as a man astonied, as a mighty man that cannot save? yet thou, O Lord, art in the midst of us, and we are called by thy name; leave us not.” 

(Footnote dear reader - I had to look up astonied! It means deprived briefly of the power to act.) 

The thirty fourth day of Lent: Pausing

My Superintendent, noticing I was texting him on a Monday texted back hoping as I was working today I am taking another day for rest this week. I’m tending to have more Fridays off than Mondays, my usual day at the moment. It’s important we take time off and dare I say, time out during the day to be apart in the midst of busyness. 

Today has been glorious in these parts. The drive over to Grewelthorpe for Lent lunch was fantastic today in the sunshine, watching the sheep in the fields and farmers at work. On the way back from lunch I called into the church in Mickley. I’d not been in it before. It was good to have some rest and quiet. (So I’ll be honest now. I’d just had a snooze in the car before leaving Grewelthorpe and lunch wasn’t even heavy!!) It’s okay to rest. I’ve no time for those clergy types who boast they don’t take days off as though we are judged by how much we do as if people have a camera filming our every move! 

Don’t let us get too busy we cannot stop and find God and have our souls refreshed. 

As I said to a dear couple years ago who got burnt out doing church jobs and became so miserable and unwell “when’s your day off church?” 

There is rest for the weary
And there's strength for the weak,
That is what God offers
To those who humbly seek

For it's only in the seeking
That we will surely find
Rest for our weary bodies
And peace for our troubled minds

And it's there in the asking
That we will come to know
God in all His splendour
With His wisdom, we will grow

And it's only in the knocking
That the door will open wide
So we can walk into
What He graciously provides

So maybe for a while
We can rest along the road
And put on Jesus yoke,
For easy is His load.

The thirty third day of Lent: Passion Sunday - the way of the Cross

How would you feel if you were reading a book and a chapter towards the end of the story has been ripped out of it?

 

How would you feel if you were watching a drama on television consisting of six episodes and suddenly the BBC decides not to show chapter five?

 

How would this sermon be if say it was ten pages long, I decided not to bother with pages seven, eight and nine?

 

What if you were doing a jigsaw and so many pieces were missing you can’t get the complete picture?

 

What if you get one of those boxes of celebrations and all the bounties have gone? That’s how these next weeks are for many good Christian people. They rush to Easter. The city is already bedecked with knitted bunnies and chickens and eggs.

 I get missing out bits but like the novel, the tv drama, the sermon and even the chocolates we need the whole experience, the whole story, for anything to make sense. 

 

I get it. Holy Week makes us uncomfortable. There is glorious life and victory to come on Easter Sunday, but to get there we must pass directly through the darkness of Good Friday. We must remember the day when human malice broke barriers and reached levels of previously unmatched atrocity. The Messiah, the King, come to save humanity, was nailed to an accursed tree and left to die. And we don’t want to think about that. 

 

My first church in Lancashire used to have a Good Friday walk. They’d come to the Good Friday service in their walking boots and didn’t want a long service. Church that day was a gathering space.I’m not sure they really wanted a service at all! 

 

Then a lady in another church I served in had a right go at me after a Good Friday service for making it too bloody… we want to miss it out.

Remember to put someone on a cross was the most terrible way to get rid of someone. A mention of a cross could make you shudder. No wonder the disciples shake. Would you cope with Jesus saying this? “See, we are going up to Jerusalem. The Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death. They will hand him over to the Gentiles to be mocked, flogged, and crucified, and on the third day he will be raised to life.” 

Jesus tried to prepare his disciples for what is coming. But they seemed steadfast in their refusal to believe it; until it happened. Jesus also offered hope to them, that he would return to life after three days. But this also never registered until after his resurrection.

It is, I suppose, understandable that the disciples failed to heed Jesus’ warning to them. After all, it did not fit with their expectations of who Jesus was. They understood crucifixion as defeat, the end of all they had hoped for in following Jesus.

But my friends, as we turn towards the climax of Jesus’ work on earth to save us, we cannot rip the cross out of the story, or not show that chapter, or leave it out because it isn’t pretty, or hope we only need do the nice bits – the orange creams and not the horrible disgusting coconutty bounty awful things we’d rather weren’t in the box. Maybe we need a Jesus who knows what it is to suffer, be abandoned, be kicked about, who is left to rot. Because we experience those things. Maybe we need a God who in solidarity with his people  

 

No one puts it more starkly – or more honestly and truthfully – than Bonhoeffer. We must recognise, he wrote from prison, “that we have to learn to live in the world ‘as if God were not here’. And this is just what we do recognise – before God! God himself compels us to recognise it… God would have us know that we must live as men and women who manage our lives without him. The God who is with us is the God who forsakes us… Before God and with God we live without God. God lets himself be pushed out of the world and onto the cross” – and then down from the cross and into the grave. “He is weak and powerless in the world, and that is precisely the way, the only way, in which he is with us and helps us.”

 

A God, a Jesus who only knows the pretty bits of life, the nice bits is in my view not a lot of use. I need to know Jesus gets my rubbish and can transform it from the cross, suffering with me. Unlike the disciples who can’t cope with it, there are people right now round the world who stand by the cross and wait and hope because they know that they do not wait and stand alone. They know a crucified Lord. The Skelldale Singers are performing Stainer’s Crucifixion on Tuesday at Sharow Church. I was the minister of a church that performed it every other Good Friday alternating with Olivet to Calvary and one lady used to get vexed if you called it Stainer’s Crucifixion: “Stainer wasn’t crucified. Jesus was.” she’d cry. “It’s the crucifixion by Stainer!”  They will sing these words:

Holy Jesu, by thy passion,
by the woes which none can share,
borne in more than kingly fashion,
by thy love beyond compare

By the treachery and trial,
by the blows and sore distress,
by desertion and denial,
by thine awful loneliness 

 By thy look so sweet and lowly,
while they smote thee on the face,
by thy patience, calm and holy,
in the midst of keen disgrace  

By the hour of condemnation,
by the blood which trickled down,
when, for us and our salvation,
thou didst wear the robe and crown

By the path of sorrows dreary,
by the cross, thy dreadful load,
by the pain, when, faint and weary,
thou didst sink, upon the road

 By the spirit which could render
love for hate and good for ill,
by the mercy, sweet and tender,
poured upon thy murd'rers still:

Crucified, I turn to thee,
Son of Mary, plead for me.

That’s what the cross is for. We stand by it and we plead for help and we gaze on Jesus who shows us what divine love is despite of what we do to him and still do to him today. I have never understood how anyone who says they are Christian can by pass the cross. I’ve had to tell people that Jesus has to rise from something and without darkness there can be no light. Missing out the brutality and horror is to leave out half the story. We cannot interact with a bloody and selfish world if we cannot stand in that world ourselves. A church that gets crucifixion comes before resurrection will be a sacrificial, deeply loving, authentic worth joining place. A church that does fluffy bunnies or worse is obsessed with power like James and John wanting to have the best seats in heaven, really hasn’t got it. 

 

I urge you this year do some cross standing before you do some empty tomb standing. Stand at the cross and bring Jesus your fears and your doubts, the things that are too hard to bear, enter the darkness, then you will find come Easter morning when we shout alleluia to our crucified and risen Lord your joy will be all the greater. 

 

Let me end with Dali. Dali’s Christ of St John of the Cross is a famous painting and hangs in the Kelvingrove Gallery in Glasgow. I went to see it the other week.  When it was purchased by the city, for a mere £8,000, there was an outcry that it was a waste of money, but the crowds quickly came to see it and it’s rumoured that the Spanish government recently offered over £80,000,000 for the picture – an offer which was turned down. 

Dali painted this work in 1951 and it depicts Christ on the cross in a darkened sky floating over a body of water complete with a boat and fishermen. Dali based his painting on a drawing by the 16th Century Spanish friar John of the Cross.  The picture is unusual as, although it is a depiction of the crucifixion, it is devoid of nails, blood, and a crown of thorns. What do you make of that?

Well, maybe it’s pointing us to the end of the story. We need the cross but it will be defeated. The pain, the deaths, the blood, the unfairness of life, the times we wish whatever we face would just go away, the days we can’t cope mentally with our lot, these aren’t the final word. There is calm and peace. The writer of Lamentations had it right. Standing on the rubble of Jerusalem returning from the exile, in the middle of words of agony he can still say God’s mercies are new every morning, great is your faithfulness. 

Here’s the point. God is in solidarity with your suffering, you can trust and love this God, and you can hope in this God for your liberation. The story of the cross after all doesn’t end with a dying Jesus, but one who rises from the dead, with a Roman empire that eventually outlaws and banishes crucifixion, and with an image of shame become an image of redemption. 

Where your life has included shame or humiliation, suffering or grief, I hope that the cross tells you that God is profoundly with you there, that Jesus has brought God into your suffering to accompany you, to liberate you, and give you life again. Isn’t that amazing good news?

The thirty second day of Lent: Annunication

It is nine months to Christmas! Some parts of the church celebrate the annunciation today.

Saturday’s gospel – 

It is one of the impossible to answer theological questions: what would have happened if Mary had said no to the Archangel Gabriel. 

It demonstrates the great relationship between God and humankind in that he has given us freewill that we may decide what we will do (which in itself can lead to great grief and despair as well as joy) but also that when he asks something of us, however difficult or even impossible it appears, he never asks of us more than we could possibly achieve.

So when God asked Mary to be the carrier of Jesus he knew that she would say yes, but she still had to make that commitment! And what a commitment it was. We should rightly never stop giving thanks and praise to Our Lady for her decision because it changed the lives of every single one of us. It enabled the Saviour of the World to be born, but it also caused great pain for her as it resulted in her dream wedding to Joseph being scuppered, her early days with her child spent on the run to Egypt, the prophesies of a sword piercing her own heart and the anguish of seeing her son, the one she knew to be sinless, being hung on the cross like a common criminal.

So it wasn’t a decision to be made lightly and her yes to God came with a price, but it also provided great rewards. What must she have been thinking when she met Elizabeth and John leapt in the womb? Or when Jesus was presented in the temple and Simeon prophesied about the coming of the Messiah or when the wise men came with their gifts to pay him homage – a double-edged sword of praise but also prophesy of the times to come. Or when the crowds followed him and listened to every word he said, through to his final ascension into heaven and finally her own assumption into heaven. 

What a moment that would be: when Gabriel, Mary, Jesus and the Father could be together to rejoice in the fulfilment of the Annunciation: to overcome sin and bring humankind to God.

So let us rejoice in Mary’s, “yes”. When God calls us, let us be open to him, let our first and lasting response be “yes” and, just like Mary, let us trust God implicitly that he will take us on a journey which may be challenging but never demanding anything that we cannot do for him.

The angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph, of the House of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary. He went in and said to her, ‘Rejoice, so highly favoured! The Lord is with you.’ She was deeply disturbed by these words and asked herself what this greeting could mean, but the angel said to her, ‘Mary, do not be afraid; you have won God’s favour. Listen! You are to conceive and bear a son, and you must name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David; he will rule over the House of Jacob for ever and his reign will have no end.’ Mary said to the angel, ‘But how can this come about, since I am a virgin?’ ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you’ the angel answered ‘and the power of the Most High will cover you with its shadow. And so the child will be holy and will be called Son of God. Know this too: your kinswoman Elizabeth has, in her old age, herself conceived a son, and she whom people called barren is now in her sixth month, for nothing is impossible to God’ ‘I am the handmaid of the Lord,’ said Mary ‘let what you have said be done to me.’ And the angel left her.

The thirty first day of Lent: Dealing with death

In the lectionary passage for this coming Sunday, Jesus faces the death of one of his closest friends, Lazarus. There is upset, both in the family, as he gets a bit of a shouting at as Martha exclaims “Lord, if you had been here my brother would not have died” and in himself. Remember the shortest verse in the Bible? “Jesus wept.” 

Lazarus is commanded to “come out.” What’s this story in John 11 some of you may hear in church on Sunday about? Lazarus will die again one day. I’ve got a sketch somewhere where Mrs Lazarus has made lovely vol au vents for the funeral tea and of course no one turns up. She gets exasperated realising another funeral tea and more vol au vents will have to be organised in the future! This story reminds us that death does not have the power over us we think it has. Death is part of life but it doesn’t have the last word. There is a new reality beyond death the person who has died will experience and while death is hard to deal with we are invited to hold on to hope. That not even death can separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ. That’s why the same pastoral tutor also taught us to always preach the Gospel at a funeral. 

I like part of this sermon from the American Episcopal Church written for Holy Week this year: 

“In the face of all the deaths that make up our lives, we are told first that death is stronger than we are and that we have neither knowledge about nor power over death. And then we are told that Jesus is Lord, Lord of all—Lord of life and of death.

So, we must choose. Whatever deaths are before us, we must choose.

We must choose to despair or to trust; to give up or to go on; to abandon hope, or to let go in faith. That choice is not made for us but is instead given to us. And that choice can be terribly hard. More than at any other time, the reality of death—death in whatever form—is a call to trust, indeed, to trust blindly.

For we see all that the world sees, and yet we see more. We see that the dry bones, even our dry bones, can live once more. And we see that the word of Jesus has power. “Come out,” the Lord calls. “Come out” into different life, into new life. “Come out” into life unknown and unexplained. “Come out” in trust and in hope.”

And here’s a thought. Is the story of Lazarus a dress rehearsal for the main event to come? It is meant to be a revelation; it is written to say: ‘this is who he is’. This is the one who summons life and hope from despair and death; this is the one whose voice cannot be ignored – even in the tomb. This is the one who, before his own resurrection, is already the resurrection and the life.

The thirtieth day of Lent: Covid remembrance

Today is the 3rd anniversary of the first lockdown in the pandemic. Boris Johnson appeared on our television screens and gravely told us we must stay at home and obey the rules coming in to keep everyone safe. As I began to write this they were scrapping about our former PM on Jeremy Vine whether he really was partying or was he motivating staff at a work event. Discuss! 

I don’t do personal views in these blogs but I think the editor of the Yorkshire Post has a belter of a front page today, on the left “Johnson’s political career in balance” and in the middle the Dean of Ripon Cathedral lighting a candle to mark a day of reflection as we remember more than 200,000 people have lost their lives over these past three years. I went into the cathedral to stand by the candle this afternoon. For many this discussion about parties will bring painful stuff to the surface again. 

I’m trying to write a book about journeying through painful experiences and I can’t get the chapter on Covid finished. It seems amazing what we all lived through when it was at its height. Lives were lost, families were separated, shielding was tough, a lot of people lost confidence and maybe life will never be the same again. We are still scarred by it. 

Where has God been through all of this? Well, let this Jewish writer help us on this day of reflection. Overwhelmed by the situation when Covid was raging, he opened the Psalms  and took a minute to pray. His 10-year-old daughter found it odd, because he usually prayed at particular times, as mandated by his religion. She asked what was going on and was everything OK “Probably for the first time in my life, I wasn’t praying because that was the order of the day or there was a particular holiday,” he told her, ‘I need to have this moment with God. I need to talk to him a little bit.’

He had an epiphany then, he said, a startling realisation that all he could do, all he could control, were his prayers.

Today the newspapers tell of Boris Johnson. The faith story to tell is that God has been with his people through the darkness and the chaos of the last three years. We’ve kept connected in the church and zoom is now part of us! We supported each other physically and mentally and we held each other up. As “normal” returns it would be a tragedy to lose that. 

So today we mark an anniversary, we reflect on a journey, we hear of parties or work events, we pause to pray for those who still suffer as a result of something we didn’t know how to deal with and we thank God we aren’t abandoned in a crisis and like the Jewish writer when all else is spiralling out of control, we thank God we can control our prayers — and whatever we pray or scream God can take it. Thank God for that! 

The twenty ninth day of Lent: Come and die

Last night in the Lent group in the vicarage at Bishop Monkton we talked about whether we make up a Jesus who doesn’t challenge us: a nice Jesus, a sweet Jesus, a therapist Jesus, an Easter Jesus but not a Good Friday Jesus. 

In the book I’m using for two groups this year, God forsaken by Archbishop Stephen Cottrell he suggests we pick and choose, we take the bits of the story we can cope with and we hope the rest might go away. 

Peter did that of course. A mention of a cross in Jesus programme had him rail against him and in the end he couldn’t cope with it and he denied he knew him. 

Over the next couple of weeks we will celebrate we have a Jesus crucified and risen. We can’t leave the crucifixion out. Jesus suffers and calls us there too. I told the group last night my spiritual hero is Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He once said “when Christ bids a man, he bids him come and die.” 

I’ve had a flipping awful day work wise. But not every day can be good. There is hard graft and there are difficult people! Sometimes we want the rainbow without the rain and we want the joy in life without the despair. That can’t be. You can’t leave out of the Godhead the bits you don’t like. 

I wonder whether our spirituality is like those boxes of chocolates we used to get. We savour the orange creams, we would rather the bountys weren’t there. 

What do you think?

The twenty eighth day of Lent: Cuthbert

There seems to be a little series occurring in these Lenten blogs of remembering the saints. We did Mary on Sunday, Joseph yesterday and today on his feast day we remember Cuthbert. 

Cuthbert was born around the year 640. As a young boy he experienced a profound experience of the presence of God and resolved to dedicate his life to his service. He was admitted as a monk to Melrose Abbey and eventually moved to Lindisfarne, where he became abbot and was consecrated Bishop in 685. He travelled tirelessly round his diocese, walking and preaching but also retreating for times of solitude and prayer.

There is a tiny island just off Lindisfarne which is itself cut off from the main island by the sea at high tide. Cuthbert withdrew there to embrace the life of a hermit. Eventually he felt even there was not isolated enough so he relocated to Inner Farne, an island even more inaccessible, where he eventually died. 

Bede sums up his character. Can we model him today? 

“Like a good teacher, he taught others to do only what he first practiced himself. Above all else he was afire with heavenly love, unassumingly patient, devoted to unceasing prayer, and kindly to all who came to him for comfort. His self discipline and fasting were exceptional, and through the grace of contrition he was always intent on the things of heaven.”

In 875, the threat from the Viking raids had grown too great and Lindisfarne’s monks had decided to flee. Of course, they couldn’t leave him behind, so with them they took his valuable remains and the precious Lindisfarne Gospels (the beautiful book which was probably crafted as part of the process of building the cult of Cuthbert). The monks carried his body for seven years until their lead persecutor, the Viking leader Halfden, died, allowing them to settle at Chester-le-Street. But not for long…

A century later renewed Viking raids meant that Cuthbert and the monks were on the move again, this time seeking refuge in Ripon before finally settling in Durham, where St Cuthbert’s remains still reside within the cathedral.

Cuthbert on our Lenten journey teaches us of the rigour of church leadership. He worked hard, pastorally walking round his patch, and while he faced opposition from monks in the priory to his suggestions, he kept at it, winning their trust. He also rested well! Retreat time was part of his routine. This is being written today after discussion with two ministers today about work load and time apart. 

Almighty God, who called your servant Cuthbert from following the flock to follow your Son and to be a shepherd of your people:
in your mercy, grant that we, following his example,
may bring those who are lost home to your fold;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The twenty seventh day of Lent: Joseph and warming pans

The 19th of March is the feast day of St. Joseph. Yesterday, on Mothering Sunday, we thought about Mary. Yet Joseph too has a crucial part to play in the story of Jesus. Think about him - engaged to Mary, told she was to have a child, wondering whether to out her as being unfaithful, yet still kind in a scandal, deciding to dismiss her quietly. Visited by angels, he’s first organising a trip to Bethlehem to be counted in a census  and after Jesus is born, he’s told to organise another trip getting the family to safety fleeing as refugees to Egypt until it was safe to return.

We know Jesus had a good upbringing in Nazareth. While Joseph isn’t mentioned again in the biblical text he is a good earthly father and role model. We think Mary was widowed quite young as Joseph was a lot older than her. 

Maybe Joseph is an example of enabling and obedience. Without his graciousness and trust, the story would have been very different. Who are those people who enable things to happen today who go the extra mile to bring about God’s purposes? 

There’s also a fun thing about today. The tradition of the removal of the warming pan from your bed on the 19th March is one that has long been adhered to by maids, landladies and housekeepers. The connection to Joseph is well… a bit dubious but one apocryphal Christian tradition suggests that the Christ child moved from the family bed to his own cot in mid March of his first year, and, wait for it, the godlike warmth of Christ is linked to the comfort of a warming pan.

It was thought to keep your bed warm in late spring was a sign of decadence and would invite a demon to slip under your covers with you! I’m writing this in bed after a long day. I’ve just checked under the covers as my bed is warm! No warming pan but the heating has been on. 

Let’s end today with a prayer to St. Joseph, for even though he never spoke a word in scripture, his silent example of obedient faithfulness and diligent care for the Holy Family during Jesus’ formative years has made him one of the most beloved saints of Christianity.

O Glorious St Joseph, to you, God committed the care of His only begotten Son amid the many dangers of this world.
We come to you and ask you to take under your special protection the children God has given us.
Through holy baptism, they became children of God and members of His holy Church.
We consecrate them to you today, that through this consecration they may become your foster children.
Guard them, guide their steps in life, form their hearts after the hearts of Jesus and Mary.

St Joseph, who felt the tribulation and worry of a parent when the child Jesus was lost, protect our dear children for time and eternity.
May you be their father and counsellor.
Let them, like Jesus, grow in age as well as in wisdom and grace before God and men.
Preserve them from the corruption of his world, and give us the grace one day to be united with them in Heaven forever. Amen.

The twenty sixth day of Lent: Mothering Sunday rediscovered

I’ve never enjoyed preaching or leading worship on Mothering Sunday. But today in three services I’ve led folk in rediscovering divine mothering and flowers were given out this morning to everyone, including men! 

A mother wrote a new version of 1 Corinthians 13…

“ If I live in a house of spotless beauty with everything in its place, but have not love, I am a housekeeper–not a homemaker.  If I have time for waxing, polishing, and decorative achievements, but have not love, my children learn cleanliness – not godliness.  Love leaves the dust in search of a child’s laugh. Love smiles at the tiny fingerprints on a newly cleaned window.  Love wipes away the tears before it wipes up the spilled milk. Love picks up the child before it picks up the toys.  Love is present through the trials. Love reprimands, reproves, and is responsive. Love crawls with the baby, walks with the toddler, runs with the child, then stands aside to let the youth walk into adulthood.  Love is the key that opens salvation’s message to a child’s heart.  Before I became a mother I took glory in my house of perfection. Now I glory in God’s perfection of my child.

As a mother, there is much I must teach my child, but the greatest of all is love.”

 St. John gives us a glimpse of Mary standing at the foot of the cross of her son. Who can imagine what she was experiencing? see the loving relationship between Mary and Jesus, and through this relationship the maternal nature of God’s love for us. 

Mary says yes after pondering, she raises the Messiah having been told when he is 8 days old by Simeon that her soul will be pierced and in today’s Gospel we meet Mary at the cross. Mary having given birth to God’s son must now watch him die a painful death, her soul is pierced with trauma and pain but this mother who has more than fulfilled her role, goes on in Acts to to be a leader and disciple in the early church.  

The Gospel gives us this moving narrative where Jesus from the cross gives his mother to John his beloved disciple, and in turn, John to his mother Mary. 

He entrusts his mother, the person who has been with him all his life, has raised him, loved him, nurtured him, to a person who was not related by blood, but a person who trusted and who loved him.  Jesus had brothers and sisters, where were they? Here, we see a new way of being family, and the start of what we now know as the church.  In this new family that Jesus creates, mothering and loving provides care and love and security. 

Throughout the Gospels we are taught, through the words and actions of Jesus that God is as much mother as father. With Christ as our pattern and our guide we are to inform our own caring and loving, as he does for each of us.

We are all called to mothering of one kind or another, because we are created in the image of God who looks after us as his children. Jesus invites us into this new family of everlasting love and mutual belonging, to belong to him and to each other.

The 4th Sunday in Lent being Mothering Sunday it had in the old Prayer Book the Epistle mentioned “Jerusalem our mother”,Galatians 4, ‘the Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all’. 

This was taken to be a symbol of the church being the mother of us all, the church looking after us and nourishing us. But this day was also called Midlenting Sunday and Refreshment Sunday. The Gospel of the day was the Feeding of the Five Thousand, and at the time when Lent was being kept very rigorously, this was seen as a hint that it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to have a break, a bit of a feast, mid-Lent. And that fitted in with the custom of people, particularly those in service, being given the day off to go home and visit their mothers, and maybe indulging in some simnel cake too.

Another tradition was that on Mothering Sunday people went to the mother church of the diocese, the cathedral, or if that was too far away, the nearest minster church. 

Today then is a day not just to remember mothers but divine mothering. God is love. And I don’t think he’s just a loving Father; he’s also a loving Mother. And by that I mean that in God are combined all the loving attributes of both fatherhood and motherhood. Those are different, aren’t they? Though of course in some human families a single parent valiantly fulfils aspects of both. God is our Parent, who creates us and then loves us to all eternity.

 

There was a lady known as Mother Julian of Norwich who was born in 1342, and she wrote these inspired and inspiring words:

As truly as God is our Father, so truly is God our Mother, and he revealed this in everything, and especially in these sweet words where he says: 

I am he; that is to say: I am he, the power and the goodness of fatherhood.

I am he, the wisdom and the lovingness of motherhood.

I am he, the light and grace which is all blessed love. I am he, the Trinity.

As truly as God is our Father, so truly is God our Mother.

Julian remains one of the most celebrated figures of the Middle Ages. And maybe, just maybe she reminds us what Mothering Sunday liturgically is for… mid way through Lent, we get a reminder of the nature of God. 

 Today in the church year is a day for celebration, a momentary lifting from the austere days that lie ahead between now and Holy Week.

It is a day to thank God and to thank our earthly mothers or those who’ve walked with us in life for our nurturing, for our upbringing and the chances in life, which they have given us, often sacrificially.

And it is above all a day to learn from the example of good human love, and the continuing giving of Christ, even whilst he breathed his last breath on the cross.

May we know that God loves us like the perfect mother, cares for us and protects us.

May we know that God in motherly love has died our death and given us life in Jesus Christ.

A happy Mothering Sunday to us.