What on earth are we doing? – The Reverend Catriona Cumming
The Reverend Catriona Cumming
Sunday 6 May 2018 – 11.30am Matins
John 15. 9-17
I would like us to pause for a few minutes this morning, and consider what it is we are doing here.
The writer of psalm 42 puts it rather beautifully:
These things I remember,
as I pour out my soul:
how I went with the throng,
and led them in procession to the house of God,
with glad shouts and songs of thanksgiving,
a multitude keeping festival.
Ps. 42. 4 NRSV
These words make sense in a building like this, gathered together with a congregation of this size.
The scale and grandeur of this place hopefully leave a mark on those who visit for whatever reason.
Celebrating the great festivals of the church’s year in this place feels significant.
The beauty of the music, the occasional profundity from the pulpit, and the sense that one is participating in something greater than one’s self, hopefully sustains those who visit, helps them encounter God’s love, and sends them out again with hope.
But it is important to remember that this service, this morning, is one of countless services all over the world.
Not many will be in such places as this.
Some will be furtive – in people’s homes, with door closed and blinds drawn.
Others will be outside, under a tree to shelter from the sun.
Some people here this morning will have been coming to the Minster for most, if not all their lives.
But not all – in fact, they will be in the minority.
For most of us, this place represents a pausing point, for however long.
For those of us for whom this is ‘home’ for a longer period of time, it is important that we remember – this is only one experience of going to church.
For some here, this may be the first time you’ve ever come into a church, or a church service.
“What on earth are they doing?!” you may think at various points.
To tell the truth, it’s something that those of us who go to church quite a bit more often think as well:
“What on Earth is she doing?”
So, what are we doing?
Well, partly, we are meeting together as a Christian community, to worship God together, but also to build relationships with each other.
It is something that we have in common with Christians across the world, though it is worth remembering that gathering together for some Christians is dangerous, or impossible.
The liberty and opportunity to congregate is not something we should take for granted.
Regardless of how often we meet, Christians are called to love one another – as Christ loved his friends.
This means seeking one another out – it means forming community.
That doesn’t mean organising committees, and subcommittees, and action groups.
It means getting to know people as they truly are, including all the REALLY annoying bits, allowing them to get to know us; loving them, and allowing them to love us in return.
Doesn’t sound very British, does it?
What we are doing today is not about meeting up with like-minded people and being nice to one another, although that’s a start.
Besides, anyone who has spent five minutes talking about anything substantive with a group of Christians, knows that under the veneer of politeness, there are huge disagreements waiting to burst out, and we all have the capacity to be anything but nice to one another.
Building community in a place like this, where so many people are passing through – on holiday, or wanting something different from their local church for just one weekend – can be hard.
Because building community takes time and patience.
But all baptized Christians, wherever they are from, are called to be part of the same family.
We are all baptized into one body – and so the stranger in our midst – that person sitting behind you who you may or may not have seen here before – is part of that community.
We work hard here to welcome visitors, wherever they are from, whatever their faith, and not just on a Sunday, but throughout the week: it’s good customer service.
But it’s about much more than getting good review on TripAdvisor. It is the mission of every Christian.
In our Gospel Jesus tells his disciples that he has appointed them to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last.
For that fruit to last, what we are doing here has to be about more than a ‘nice’, or even ‘moving’ experience.
Fruit that will last is fruit that will grow and thrive in trying, hazardous conditions, through drought or flood.
Jesus appointed his disciples. He chose them.
All of this stems from that choice.
God chooses you.
God chooses me.
God chooses us.
“If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.”
We are here because God is. And God is love.
Love by its nature is relational.
It is dynamic, and transformative.
It is God’s love at work in us which enables to build community.
When we place aside our ego, our grand plans, and abide in God’s love, that is when we see growth.
Bonhoeffer, writing about life together, commented that:
“Christian brotherhood is not an ideal which we must realize; it is rather a reality created by God in Christ in which we may participate. The more clearly we learn to recognize that the ground and strength and promise of all our fellowship is in Jesus Christ alone, the more serenely shall we think of our fellowship and pray and hope for it.”
Bonhoeffer, D. 1953 ‘Life Together’, p. 18. SCM publishing.
I can’t quite get through a whole sermon on this passage without mentioning the icon which hung on the wall of the chapel of my theological college: Westcott House in Cambridge.
It is an icon of Jesus, and the scripture it contains is from this passage: ‘you did not choose me, but I chose you’.
Such a choice, when one is under strain from deadlines, and finding other members of the community challenging, can feel like a huge cosmic joke.
But at its heart is God’s desire for us.
It is that desire which draws us here today, and which shapes us, if we allow it.
At the beginning and end of each day here, we pray.
We pray in the middle of the day too.
We gather to give thanks, to plead, to rejoice or lament.
But essentially what we are doing is taking time to be with God: to abide in God’s love.
Worship has taken many forms through the Church’s history, as Christianity has crossed borders, and been brought into conversation with different cultures.
It can be grand and solemn, silent or raucous.
Today we gather round a table – seeking to spend time to abide with God, Jesus abides, is present with us, in bread and wine, as he is present wherever two or three are gathered together in his name.
As bread and wine are transformed, so we as a community and as individuals, are transformed.
Only through relationship, through the love of God, are we then able to offer love to one another – despite our differences and disagreements – however well we know one another.
And more than that, we are then able to show the love of God to those who have no idea what on earth we’re doing here.
And so we are appointed to bear fruit, fruit that will last.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
I’m going fishing – Canon Dr Christopher Collingwood (Chancellor)
The Reverend Canon Dr Christopher Collingwood (Chancellor)
Sunday 6 May 2018 – 11.30am Matins
Ezekiel 47:1-12 John 21:1-19
‘I’m going fishing,’ announced Peter, as we heard in today’s second lesson. As a response to resurrection, this might strike us as rather odd, so let’s explore what might be going on here.
The two final chapters of the Gospel of John are devoted to accounts of the resurrection and, in addition to the Risen Christ himself, these chapters are concerned almost exclusively with four characters: Mary Magdalene, Peter, the one known as the Beloved Disciple, and Thomas.
At the beginning of chapter 20, Mary Magdalene, distressed at having discovered that the tomb where Jesus had been buried was empty, runs to tell Peter and the one described as the ‘other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved’, whereupon the two men run to the tomb with Mary to see for themselves. Mary, we read, stands weeping outside the tomb by herself, and it’s here that she encounters the Risen Christ in the one she presumes to be the gardener.
Later, Jesus appears to the disciples who’re locked behind closed doors, but Thomas is absent. A week later, Jesus makes another appearance, and this time Thomas is present as well.
Today, we heard from chapter 21 of seven of the disciples gathered by the Sea of Tiberias, when Peter says, ‘I’m going fishing’. Jesus appears and directs the operation from the shore, enabling them to catch such a large quantity of fish that it’s difficult for the net to be hauled in. Jesus then cooks breakfast for them on a charcoal fire, and this is followed by Jesus asking Peter three times if he loves him, which he answers affirmatively in each case.
So what’s so odd about Peter going fishing? Well, just imagine what the situation must have been like. As far as the disciples were concerned, the crucifixion of Jesus had been an unmitigated disaster, and for Peter himself there must have been a sense of personal guilt and shame at having denied that he’d ever even known Jesus. Then came the most extraordinary news that Jesus had been raised from the dead, something Peter came to see for himself at first-hand. He was presumably present when Jesus appeared to the disciples in Thomas’ absence, and then again when Thomas was present. So along with the other disciples, Peter was involved in experiences that were certainly difficult to comprehend, but which came with an overwhelming sense of exhilaration and joy, along with the promise of liberation and new possibilities. And Peter’s response to all this was to go fishing! What do we make of this?
The gospels convey the distinct impression that the twelve whom Jesus called to follow him actually left their daily occupations, including their homes and families, so it would be seem, to wander around the Galilean countryside with him for three years, learning from him and being a small itinerant community. So when Peter declares that he’s going fishing, it looks like a retrograde step. It’s as if everything has ended in disaster, and not even resurrection is enough to make Peter reconsider the conclusions he’s drawn. It appears that the time Peter spent with Jesus counted for almost nothing and that Peter had learned little of significance from him. Peter seems to regress to what he knows; he settles back into his comfort zone.
There’s another way of looking at this, though, and it’s quite simply this: that the impact of resurrection is to turn us all in the direction, as it were, of metaphorical fishing. In other words, resurrection isn’t about some delightful experience which removes us from the world and from everyday life. It invites us to find the resurrection life in every situation, in every circumstance, in every person, at every moment. Although we habitually divide everything up, life is actually a whole. Our work and leisure are as important as our worship; what we do in the world as important as what we do in church. Divisions are false. Isn’t it precisely while Peter is fishing that he perceives the presence of the Risen Christ making a difference to his work?
This dynamic is paralleled in the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, too. When the women discover the empty tomb, they’re told that Jesus isn’t there, but that he’s been raised and that he’s gone on ahead to Galilee. Now Galilee was where the whole Jesus thing had begun. We might have expected the women to have been told that Jesus was to meet them somewhere different and special where there’d be an amazing spectacle, a denouement where all ambiguities, perplexities and puzzles would be ironed out and everything made crystal clear for all to see. Instead they’re told in as many words to return to everyday life and get on with the business of living.
For those who like the spectacular and dramatic, this is hugely disappointing. The good news, though, is that this raises everyday life far above routine and drudgery. We all spend the vast bulk of our lives in what we call everyday life, being involved in work, enjoying family life, preparing meals, dealing with finances, caring for the sick, getting into arguments, promoting justice, making music, spending time with friends, planning holidays, making ends meet, and so on. What Peter discovered is that it’s precisely here, in our daily activities, that we discover the presence of the Risen Christ. The challenge for the Church isn’t only to gather people together, but also to enable all people to see that we’re walking on holy ground, whoever we are, wherever we may be, and whatever we’re doing.
So what will you do as you leave this cathedral? Have a chat with one of the clergy? Go for a drink? Get some lunch? Deal with your e-mails? Meet friends? Go to work? Have a rest? Whatever the case, these are all where we ‘go fishing’, and it’s there that the Risen Christ is already present.
Arise, shine, for your light has come – Canon Dr Christopher Collingwood (Chancellor)
The Reverend Canon Dr Christopher Collingwood (Chancellor)
Sunday 29th April 2018 – 4.00pm Evensong
Isaiah 60:1-14 Revelation 3:1-13
The opening verses of this evening’s first lesson from the prophecy of Isaiah are some of the most beautiful and lyrical words in the whole of the Bible:
Arise, shine, for your light has come,
and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.
Some might argue that Isaiah has a more such lyricism than any of the other prophetic books. And you’ll be familiar with other such passages, not least from Handel’s oratorio, Messiah. Take this, for example:
Comfort, comfort ye my people,
saith your God.
Speak comfortably to Jerusalem,
and cry unto her that her warfare is accomplished,
that her iniquity is pardoned (Isaiah 40:1-2).
Those were verses from chapter 40. Here are some from chapter 53, from one of the so-called suffering servant songs:
He was despised and rejected,
A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
Surely he hath borne our griefs,
and carried our sorrows:
he was wounded for our transgressions,
he was bruised for our iniquities (53:3, 4a, 5a).
And then what about these from chapter 61, words which Jesus reads when he goes to the synagogue immediately after his baptism and temptation in Luke’s gospel:
The spirit of the Lord is upon me,
Because the Lord has anointed me;
He has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed,
To bind up the broken-hearted,
To proclaim liberty to captives
And release to the prisoners (61:1-2).
These few passages beautifully convey the general tenor of the latter part of Isaiah’s prophecy, addressed as they are, first, to those exiled to Babylon after Jerusalem had been destroyed in 587BC, and then to the exiles who’d been allowed to return to Jerusalem to rebuild their city, their temple and their lives, some fifty years later. Whereas the first part of the book, which relates to the situation of Jerusalem under the threat of Assyria in the eighth century BC, contains warnings about failing to trust God and making alliances with foreign powers, the latter part of the book, clearly addressing much later historical circumstances, speaks to a people broken by suffering and disaster, whose morale is in need of rebuilding. To these people, Isaiah speaks words of grace, hope, encouragement, healing, forgiveness and restoration: ‘Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.’
I suspect it’s rather hard for us actually to imagine just what the situation must have been like. Those who are old enough to have lived through the Second World War might be able to identify with a general sense of being exhausted and worn down, but, in this country, at least, that will have been tempered with euphoria at having won. This wasn’t the case for Isaiah’s exiles. They were utterly broken, believing themselves to have been abandoned by God and left to the mercy of the Babylonians. They’d lost everything. The whole of their history and identity rested on the belief that they were the chosen people, enjoying a special relationship with God, and yet all that now seemed little more than a delusion. The return to Jerusalem to start the enormous task of rebuilding will surely have been tinged with a heavy dose of forlornness and weariness, to say nothing of self-recrimination and guilt. Even to entertain the possibility of believing in themselves once again must have seemed like requiring a monumental effort on the part of the people, let alone believing in a God who loved and cherished them. And yet it is to such a condition that Isaiah speaks, ‘Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.’
This is, of course, the message of Easter, that the one who was despised and rejected, the one who bore suffering and sorrow, has been raised, that his glory is not for himself alone, but that his light irradiates the whole creation. The light of Christ is our light; his glory is also our glory.
Can we possibly believe that? Does the world look like that? Does the situation in Syria, for example, encourage us to trust that the light of the Risen Christ is already shining upon them and us, to see that the glory of God has already risen upon them? It’s not surprising that many would dismiss such notions as fantasies and delusions, and yet the light for which we look is not one that blinds us because it’s so bright, but rather one that glimmers faintly but steadily.
Faith isn’t simply a private matter for individuals, it’s something that relates to every aspect of our communal, national and global life, but this isn’t to say that it’s not personal. After all, the focus of the Christian faith is a person, who himself experienced suffering and death and, in one sense, tragedy, disaster and failure. And I suspect that it’s in the context of our own personal lives that we’re most likely to find the possibility of seeing, believing and trusting that at the heart of everything is a gracious presence and power of love and goodness, which often seems to be obscured, sometimes glimmers, and occasionally blazes for just a short time. In other words, we’ve probably all got stories, not only of how we’ve experienced suffering, despair and failure, but also of how, in ways we may not be able to explain or even comprehend fully, we’ve also experienced new life, new possibilities, new beginnings. These, I would suggest, are experiences of resurrection, which are signs of the glory of the Lord rising upon us because our light has come.
We’ll all be aware, no doubt, of other people for whom this is the case. John Profumo comes to my mind, and I’m longing for his biography to be written. Born in 1915, Jack, as he was known, was one of might be called the top drawer of society. Educated at Harrow and Oxford, he was appointed an OBE in 1944 for distinguished war service, rising eventually to the rank of brigadier. He inherited a barony from his father in 1940, entered politics and served as the conservative member of Parliament first for Kettering and then for Stratford-on-Avon. In 1960, he was appointed Secretary of State for War.
It’s the year 1963, though, which marked the turning point of his life. Having married Valerie Hobson, an Irish actress, in 1954, he was introduced in 1961 to Christine Keeler, a high class call-girl, with whom he began a brief affair. This would have been of no consequence, had she not also had an affair with Yevgeni Ivanov, the senior naval attaché at the Soviet Embassy. In March 1963, the Labour MP, George Wigg, raised questions about national security in the House of Commons, insinuating that Profumo had conducted an affair with Keeler, something that Profumo denied. In British politics, however, lying is deemed to be the ultimately unforgivable sin, and so it was that on 5th June 1963, Profumo was forced to resign, his political career in tatters.
The remarkable thing about Profumo is that he maintained a total silence about the events that had led to his political downfall. His wife stood by him faithfully, and not long after his resignation, Walter Birmingham, the Warden of Toynbee Hall, a charity working with the disadvantaged in London’s East End, invited him to work there as a volunteer, something he did until his life ended in 2006, at the age of 91. Using his political skills, he worked tirelessly and self-effacingly as a fundraiser, for which, in 1975, he was made a CBE. He was invested with this honour by the Queen herself, something that many saw as marking his rehabilitation to public life, and Margaret Thatcher invited him to attend her own 70th birthday party, seating him next to the Queen.
His obituary stated that his life consisted of two halves: disgrace and redemption. Profumo himself never justified or defended his actions and never referred to what became known as the Profumo Affair, which is why, sadly, there’ll probably never be a biography. In his obituary, though, Lord Longford said that he felt more admiration for Profumo than for anyone else he’d ever known. The residents of Toynbee Hall described him as a saint.
I’ve no idea what his religious affiliation was, if any, nor do I know whether he took matters of faith and spirituality seriously. All I can say is that for me, the way he lived his life after the political scandal is inspiring. There appears to have been no trace of self-pity, just a concern to make amends. What enables that to happen, whatever our religious persuasion, is the grace of God. That’s what we see in the restoration of the Israelites in the sixth century BC. It’s what we see in the resurrection of Jesus, and it’s what we experience in our own lives in all sorts of small and large ways. Sometimes we hit rock bottom in life, but whether we do so as a result of our own making or that of others, the bottom is never a dead end. For beyond what we can conceive or comprehend is something else: the indestructible presence of God, who comes to us as grace and who always addresses us with the words, ‘Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you’.
Reframing our Worldviews – The Reverend Canon Dr Christopher Collingwood (Chancellor)
The Reverend Canon Dr Christopher Collingwood (Chancellor)
Sunday 22nd April 2018 – 11.30am Matins
Nehemiah 7:73b-8:12 Luke 24:25-32
Beningbrough Hall is a large Georgian Mansion just outside York, owned now by the National Trust, which houses a large collection of 18th century paintings on loan from the National Portrait Gallery. To celebrate the centenary this year of women gaining the right to vote, the four principal galleries are now home to a temporary exhibition called Making her Mark: Celebrating Creative Women, which showcases women who’ve been a significant influence in the worlds of literature, dance and drama. Among the subjects depicted are Judi Dench, JK Rowling and Darcey Bussell.
If you walk around the estate of Beningbrough Hall, you’ll come across at one point what looks like an empty picture frame on a stand. Beningbrough Hall can be seen from all sorts of vantage points on the estate, but the purpose of this frame is that it’s somehow supposed to provide the best view of Beningbrough Hall when seen through it. The intention is to make you stop and look in a focussed rather than a casual way at the house.
The sight of an empty picture frame at Beningbrough seems rather bizarre, but the interesting thing is that we all actually view the world through a metaphorical picture frame all the time, whether we realise it or not. What I mean is this. All of us, no doubt, think that we perceive the world as it really is. The truth of the matter, however, is that our view – our worldview – is structured, coloured, shaped and skewed in all sorts of ways. Our view of the world isn’t neutral. It’s viewed through a frame. Our worldview is a kind of framework which directs us to see the world in this way rather than that.
All sorts of factors influence how we see things before we actually see them. So, for example, if you’re born in India, the chances are you’ll see the world through the eyes of Indian philosophy and spirituality. If, on the other hand, you’re born in Saudi Arabia, you’ll see the world through the eyes of Islam. If you’d lived in the former Soviet Union, your worldview would have been one of atheistic socialism. We can’t escape having a worldview. The problem is that our worldviews very rarely accommodate the whole world. When this becomes clear to us, we find we have a choice. We either exclude what doesn’t fit and pretend it doesn’t exist, or we allow our worldview to change and expand to fit the facts.
One example of this would be the Church’s attitude to slavery. Jesus himself didn’t challenge slavery, nor did Paul the Apostle. It’s only in relatively recent history that it was challenged as an offence against God and human dignity, despite the fact that the defining event in the Old Testament was the exodus of the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt, into what was promised to be the freedom of the Promised Land.
Many slave owners and slave traders resisted the abolition of slavery in the 19th century, for the obvious reason that it adversely affected their economic interests. We now take it for granted that slavery is wrong. Our worldview is one that, at least in principle, accommodates the inherent dignity and freedom of every human being. For most of history, though, this hasn’t been the case. The prevailing worldview prevented slavery from being seen for what it is.
Similar challenges to worldviews have come in our own time in relation, for example, to women and homosexuality. Those whose worldview is shaped by an adherence to a literal reading of the Bible will argue that there should be no accommodation to the pressure to see things in a different way, while others will suggest that the facts of experience can’t be ignored, and that there are ways of reading the Bible in other than a literal way. So one of the things about worldviews is that there will always be different ways of seeing and experiencing the world and one of the paradoxical things about worldviews is that they actually have to accommodate that fact. One of the tests of the adequacy of a worldview is how successfully it is able to do just that.
In today’s second reading from the Gospel of Luke we see a worldview being changed before our very eyes. The bulk of Luke’s account of the resurrection takes the form of a story about a journey made by two disciples on their way from Jerusalem to Emmaus. Their worldview is under severe strain, because they simply can’t accommodate the fact that the one they’d hoped would be the saviour of Israel had met an ignominious death on a cross. Furthermore, reports had been received that some women had heard that this same person was now actually alive. As they walk, a mysterious stranger joins them, who encourages them to tell him all that’s happened. And it’s he, the Risen Christ, who, step by step, begins to reshape their worldview into one that can accommodate suffering and death in a new way, with resurrection then thrown in to boot. Their worldview has been shaped by their scriptures but they can’t see what the scriptures are actually saying:
‘Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared. Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?’ Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.
As a result of this encounter, their worldview is changed. From the perspective of resurrection, suffering and death are seen in a different light and enabled to take their place in a way that hadn’t seemed possible before.
The claim that Jesus has been raised from the dead is in itself one that many find difficult to accommodate into their worldview. It seems to go against all that’s understood about how the world works. There’s a deeper truth to which the claim points us, though, and it’s simply this. Every worldview, including the Christian one, is limited and struggles to accommodate the whole truth. At the heart of all experience, though, is a mysterious dynamic, forever reshaping things and opening up new possibilities. We’re invited to let go of all that’s limited, to die, and to have new life breathed into us, to be raised. In so doing, we discover that at the heart of everything is an eternal freshness, an openness, a newness, of which the resurrection of Jesus is the supreme sign.
Being a shepherd is dangerous – The Reverend Canon Michael Smith (Pastor)
The Reverend Canon Michael Smith (Pastor)
Sunday 22nd April 2018 10am Choral Eucharist
Acts 4.5-12 & John 10.11-18
I looked up ‘Dangerous jobs’ on the internet. Apparently one of the most dangerous jobs in the world is underwater welding – statistically it is a thousand times more dangerous than being a policeman. Working on an oil rig is also quite high up the list of dangerous jobs as is ‘snake milker’! A snake milker is someone who takes the venom from poisonous snakes that is then used in creating medicines, including antidotes for those bitten by poisonous snakes! It is quite clear to see how all these jobs are dangerous – but who would ever think that being a shepherd might be dangerous? We think of shepherds as people protecting and herding sheep in beautiful countryside with a well-trained dog. Even when we think of Jesus being a shepherd we think of those images of him standing on a beautiful hillside with a lamb, probably the Lost Sheep from the parable, over his shoulders. And yet, in biblical times, being a shepherd was a very dangerous job indeed. Remember the story of David and Goliath? David was a shepherd and as he goes out to face up to the fearsome Goliath he says, ‘The Lord, who saved me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear, will save me from the hand of this Philistine.’ I Sam 17v37. In biblical times,being a shepherd was dangerous.
In today’s gospel Jesus is identified as the Good Shepherd who is prepared to live with danger and even to lay down his life for the sheep. The passage points out that sheep being watched over by a lazy shepherd not fully committed to protecting them, are in great danger. The good shepherd is prepared to die to protect the sheep. The passage we hear as our gospel reading today is hugely encouraging, it is telling us that Jesus is our good shepherd, willing to give his life to protect us.
That is one way of looking at it. Another way of looking at this passage is that it makes it absolutely clear that being one of Jesus’s sheep, or, being a follower of Jesus, being a Christian, is difficult and dangerous. There are wolves out there who will attack and scatter.
Christians have many critics, those who think we are fantasists, simply frightened of death, falling for a silly set of superstitious beliefs that help us get through the day, face our mortality and skate over the issues of real life. Much of this criticism might be summed up in the famous quotation from Karl Marx, ‘Religion is the opium of the people’. In other words, many think that religion is a ‘comfort blanket’ for those who cannot face reality.
What all this does not take into account is the fact that being a Christian is actually quite hard. I have preached many sermons about how we mistakenly think that everyone who met Jesus, everyone who was healed by him or forgiven by him then immediately lived happily ever after. It may be that ultimately they did live happily ever after but encountering Jesus, receiving healing and forgiveness from Jesus, meant radical change, living differently in the future – and that is always hard.
Added to this is the fact that some people come to faith as a result of a joyous conversion experience, but many come to faith through difficulty, pain and darkness. I began thinking about this particularly this week because on Tuesday the Old Testament reading at Morning Prayer was from Exodus 20. Most of that chapter is about God giving the Ten Commandments to Moses on Mount Sinai, but when that has finished it says this in verse 21 ‘The people remained at a distance, while Moses approached the thick darkness where God was.’ It is not only Moses who finds God in the ‘deep darkness’, I have spoken to many people who have encountered God in the ‘deep darkness’ that we sometimes experience in our lives. In this Easter season it is important for us to remember that new life comes out of the ‘deep darkness’ of a tomb. Our faith is not about running away from real life to escape it’s challenges and complexity it is about walking into life, with all its challenges and complexities, knowing that even in the darkest places we go, God is in the midst of it and so there is always a way forward, there is always the possibility of new life, there is always hope. Not a kind of wishful thinking, blind optimism, but a way of prayerfully discovering creative ways forward, prayerfully discovering that generosity of spirit, grace and love, though hard times, sometimes involving real challenge and sacrifice, will always lead to new life, new ways of being and ultimately to fullness of life.
I am not sure how Christians have managed to get this reputation for being people who cannot face real life and so embrace a set of silly superstitious beliefs. A careful reading of scripture does not point to this – the life of Jesus certainly does not suggest being his follower will be easy. Being a follower of Jesus, being a Christian is not and never has been about running away from the complications, contradictions, challenges and sometimes the ‘deep darkness’ of real everyday life. It is about walking into life, real everyday life, believing that in the midst of the complications, contradictions, challenges and sometimes the ‘deep darkness’ of everyday life, we can discover God and by aligning ourselves with God, with the ways of God, we will discover how to live and even thrive through all our life experiences. By living this way we will, as John says in his gospel, have life and have it abundantly.
We know that being our Good Shepherd was dangerous for Jesus and that, following this metaphor, being Jesus’ sheep is fraught with challenge and danger. We believe that, because of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, because of what happened on Good Friday and subsequently on Easter Day, the Good Shepherd walks with us. There is nothing that can happen to us, nowhere, not even a tomb, where we won’t discover God. So we can join with the psalmist in praising God and saying, “If I say, ‘Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light around me become night’, even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you.” Psalm 139.11-12
Boundless Openness – The Reverend Canon Dr Christopher Collingwood (Chancellor)
The Reverend Canon Dr Christopher Collingwood (Chancellor)
Sunday 15 April (The Third Sunday of Easter), 10am Eucharist
Acts 3:12-19 Luke 24:36b-48
A couple of days ago, one of the Minster Community said to me, ‘I hope we’re going to hear about your sabbatical in your sermon on Sunday’. Well, that’s a little bit like someone saying they’d love to see your holiday photos, and two hours later regretting they’d ever been quite so polite! I know for a fact that the person in question wasn’t simply being polite, but I recognise that not everyone will be quite so interested, so I won’t go on about it too much. First, though, may I say how deeply grateful I am to all of you, and especially to my colleagues, for making it possible for me to be away for just over three months. I’m aware that my absence has added to their load, but it’s a mark of our generosity towards each other that we can make it possible for sabbaticals to happen. So, to Viv, Peter, Michael and Catriona: thank you so much.
Sue and I spent just under four weeks in India in January. Then we lived in Goathland for two months where I was able to write a book and I’m pleased to say it’s now in the hands of the publisher. The current title is Zen Wisdom for Christians and it’s due to be published later this year. One of the lovely things about being relieved temporarily of responsibilities in the Minster is that we’ve had weekends free, and we were able to use them to visit different churches and also to catch up with family and friends. That’s been a real gift. In Easter week we had a holiday in Skipness, just across the water from the Isle of Arran. On Easter Day itself we attended the Episcopalian church in Lochgilphead, where we had the liturgical works, and where we were made to feel extraordinarily welcome. I’ve had to revise completely my stereotypical view of the Scots as dour, miserable and stingy. Now it’s just Yorkshire people who’re like that!
One of the purposes of going to India, apart from seeing a number of people we’ve known there for nearly 25 years, was to visit a Zen centre up in the hills near Kodaikanal in Tamil Nadu. We hadn’t been before and we enjoyed ten wonderful days there. The Zen Master is a Jesuit priest, Fr AMA Samy, a quite remarkable man who just exudes peace and tranquillity. He’s spent much of his adult life now practising Zen as a Christian, and Bodhi Zendo, which can accommodate some 50 guests at a time, is full all the year round. Many of the visitors are from Europe, especially Germany, but it attracts people from all over the world, mostly but not exclusively Christian, in search of a depth of spirituality which they find it hard to come across in their churches. What they’ve discovered is that meditation, being still, waiting in silence and being open connects them more profoundly with themselves, with others, with the world and with God.
AMA Samy is quite a prolific author and in one of his books he describes the characteristic stance of Christians who practise Zen as ‘boundless openness’. This openness is what lies at the heart of the Easter mystery. As far as Zen is concerned, AMA Samy says that the Christian must ‘learn to let go, to pass over, to die, into Zen and Zen tradition. Having died, he or she can come back to life’. For dialogue to be ‘genuine and life-giving, it must be a passing over and dying into the other…The heart of Christianity is discovered as boundless openness to the other…This is the mystery of Jesus Christ’.[1]
Boundless openness. That’s the message of Easter. It’s one we all long to know in our depths and it’s one the world needs to hear more than ever at this time. Because the truth is that boundless openness is primarily what God is. God is boundlessly open towards us as an infinitely limitless love. It’s what all human beings are in their hearts, too, created as we are in the image and likeness of God, but such openness, as well as being utterly exhilarating and liberating, is also scary, for it takes us out of our comfort zones. Boundlessly open love asks us to lose ourselves in love, to risk being hurt and rejected, ridiculed and misunderstood for the sake of love, but because of our fear we resist the truth of who God is and of who we are. We close in on ourselves and become closed to others and to God in the mistaken belief that somehow we shall be able to hang on to ourselves. In truth, this is the real death.
And this is precisely what the whole Easter story is about. Jesus is the very embodiment of God’s boundlessly open love. Such openness, however, was too threatening – largely, it should not be forgotten, for the religious establishment – so he was killed. His resurrection, though, demonstrates the boundlessly open heart of God, who, even when rejected, cannot help but go on loving. Boundlessly open love is who God is in God’s inner being as Trinity, a communion of love, in which each person of the Trinity is utterly transparent to the other. Boundlessly open love is who God is in relation to God’s beloved creation, which God longs to draw in to the very fullness of divine life without any barrier whatsoever. Boundlessly open love is God’s nature – and although obscured, it’s yours and mine, too. Easter summons us to open ourselves to God’s boundlessly open love and, in so doing, to be who we are.
This is what we hear in both readings today. In the reading from the Acts of the Apostles, Peter is depicted as almost rubbing the Israelites’ noses in the shame of rejecting Jesus and choosing a murderer instead. And yet, despite killing the ‘Author of life’, a fresh start, a new beginning is available to all. All that’s required is repentance, a turning to God in boundless openness, a God who doesn’t rub our noses in it but embraces and includes us in God’s boundlessly open love.
In the gospel reading the Risen Christ greets the eleven and their companions with a seemingly innocuous word: ‘Peace’ – ‘Shalom’. The gospels are at one in their portrayal of the disciples as being bewildered, confused and afraid, and this rings true, doesn’t it? If you’d just let your friend down in such a way that had led to his or her death, wouldn’t you be consumed with guilt, remorse and self-hatred. You probably couldn’t imagine the sting ever being removed. So even the news that Jesus was alive would be tinged with apprehension. Would there be blame, recriminations, a reckoning? No wonder they were disbelieving in their joy. Jesus greets them with, ‘Peace, be still, stop beating yourselves up, it’s all okay. My presence is the sign that the boundlessly open love which I am in every fibre of my being, and which led to my death, is actually indestructible, so open your hearts to it, lose yourselves in it, and come alive, for there’s nothing to be afraid of’.
Nothing to be afraid of? We’re living at a time when there seems a great deal to be afraid of. Chemical weapons, bombs in Syria, political instability on a global scale, an escalation of tension that’s led some to comment that we’re in a more dangerous state than we’ve been since the Second World War. The knee-jerk reaction to such circumstances is to close down, to harden the boundaries, to pretend that everything’s black and white, to behave in the very way that led to Jesus’ death.
The message of Easter is that the way that leads to life is to be boundlessly open – to the other, to difference, to change, to love. Of course it’s costly. That’s what the cross shows. But just imagine what this place and the whole Church would be like if we were truly open and inclusive, comfortable with rubbing shoulders and sitting next to people with whom we might disagree strongly and yet prepared to take the time and effort to find out what makes us all tick. Just imagine. We’d be a truly Easter people, boundlessly open in love to one another and to God, a sign of the presence of the boundlessly open God, whose love is indestructible. We’d be who we really are.
[1] See Samy, AMA (2009) The Zen Way, Dindigul: Vaigarai, p.121 and Samy, AMA (2010) Zen: Ancient and Modern, Dindigul: Vaigarai, pp.201-202.
The writers of our Scriptures have a lot to answer for – The Reverend Catriona Cumming
The Reverend Catriona Cumming
Sunday 15 April 2018 – 11.30am Matins
The writers of our Scriptures have a lot to answer for.
Or perhaps I should say: the compilers, editors and interpreters of our Scriptures have a lot to answer for.
I doubt many of them could imagine this society, and how different it might be to their own.
Concentrating on telling the story of what God was doing in their midst, could they possibly imagine a woman in holy orders, beginning a sermon with that phrase: they have a lot to answer for?
After all, their context, which framed the stories they told, is so different from our own. Yet their society has in many ways shaped ours, for better and sometimes, for worse.
Two issues stand out to me – their acceptance of slavery as a normal part of life, and the place of women within a deeply patriarchal society.
We may think that we have moved on – and in many ways we have – but this week’s news headlines show how deep the influence of those patriarchal worlds runs.
This past week saw the anniversary of the assassination of Dr Martin Luther King. The work that he did, and that is continued by groups like Black Lives Matter, Poor People’s Campaign, and others, shows that the legacy of slavery is still with us, even before we consider the horrors of modern day slavery.
Earlier this week I was in a conversation about safeguarding, when the second issue was put front and centre. Historically, and even currently, one of the mitigating stories we as a society tell ourselves about sexual misconduct and abuse of power is this: a poor person – generally but not exclusively a man – cannot help themselves, faced with an alluring, perhaps unconsciously seductive person – generally, but not exclusively, female, and so fall into actions which are harmful to that person.
It is a story told throughout history, and its characters are infamous: Jezebel, Salome, and of course Eve.
Eve who begins it all.
Who has, to quote Nicola Slee:
“presented as the temptress and seductress, responsible for sin in a way not true of Adam”(Slee, Nicola. Faith and Feminism: An introduction to Feminist Theology 2003. Darton Longman & Todd, p, 18.)
The problem is that not only has Eve been seen as a femme fatale, seducing Adam into eating what he should not eat – she has passed on those traits, those seductive and frightening qualities to all women – so said many of the Church fathers.
John Chrysostom wrote:
‘What else is woman but a foe to friendship, an inescapable punishment, a necessary evil, a natural temptation, a desirable calamity, a domestic danger, a delectable detriment*, an evil nature, painted with fair colours?’
*I want to get that printed on a shirt.
For centuries, for a woman to be saved, she needed to be subject to a man, be that her father, husband, or priest.
Women, as uncontrollable, irrational beings, were deemed incapable of performing certain roles. And so, broadly speaking, the world was divided up into male and female spheres. Women had no place in public life, in politics or academia. Men, busy with their own affairs, left the private sphere, the family, to women.
This is a division men and women are still trying to negotiate.
The recent reports from major companies on the gender pay gap, tells us that we still have work to do.
So, why does this matter? Should we not just consign these archaic bits of scripture to history where they belong, and move on with our lives in the 21st century?
Some think we should do precisely that. I don’t.
The stories in the Old Testament have important things to say, about who God is, and who we are in relation to God.
Looking back on the way these scriptures have been interpreted, shows us the struggles of women and men through the ages, to honour God, and to be faithful.
In critically appraising not only scripture, but the interpretation handed down to us, we can, by the work of the Spirit, not only identify with the struggles of women, and men, in times past, but also allow God to speak into our struggles today.
We can stand in solidarity with those women, and men, who stood out in a patriarchal society, and whose voices and motivations have been lost, or distorted by time, and bias.
We need to do this for all of scripture – not just the bits we find difficult.
This evening is the eve of the feast of the annunciation, when Mary was told that she would become the mother of our Lord.
If Eve has become the archetype of the femme fatale, Mary is the flipside of that archetype.
The pure, chaste, virtuous woman is also a strong narrative weaving its way through the Old Testament, into the Epistles, and Revelation.
Mary, in contrast to Eve, has been elevated, so much that it sometimes seems as if she can never have been human – so perfect is she.
For Christians who honour her, who ask for her help and intercession, she has been, is a lifeline.
But she, like her son, was fully human. Viewed with an awareness of the prevailing norms for women in her age, and for ages afterwards, HER act of obedience, of subservience to God’s will, was profoundly counter-cultural.
She was radically, physically, bodily obedient to God in direct contravention of societal expectations.
Through who she was she turned the world on its head. Through this woman, the world was transformed.
“But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children.”
The writers of scripture have much to answer for. Thank God.