A fresh start

 ‘…From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace..’ (John 1:16)

John 1:1-18 (Year C: Christmas 2)

                                                       pic:  Front Royal United Methodist Church

Fresh Start is the name of a recent political agreement in Northern Ireland. Whatever that agreement will represent in the future annals of history there is nothing stopping you and me making a ‘fresh start’ this first Sunday of 2016.  For now, the gyms may be busy, the joggers out in extra force, the new year’s resolution list pinned to the fridge (however I suspect not in most cases!) and lots of people determined to make 2016 a different year. The demarcation of years, months and weeks is an arbitrary human construct as we inherit ancient customs of marking out time in harmony with the seasons or the moon, etc.  Here in the northern hemisphere, new year’s day has an added significance in that spring is only weeks away and there is going to a very gradual and slight lengthening of the days from here on.  It is close to the ‘end of the holiday period’ for those ‘lucky’ enough to have structured jobs, activities and studies as the case may be.  Soon, Christmas trees will be deposited in assigned collection places (can anybody think of the environment please!) and the Christmas decoration (or will we have to say ‘holiday’ period in order to be politically correct as in North America which means it is only a matter of time that such terminology will be applied here in Europe).

Some Christian traditions (e.g. Methodists) mark this Sunday as ‘Covenant Sunday’ – a time for renewal and re-dedication.  The first day of January is also marked as World Peace Day. In the Roman Catholic tradition the 1^st January is the feast of Mary the Mother of God while among Anglicans – never given to excess – the day is marked as the feast of the circumcision of the Lord.  Eastern Orthodox Christians also celebrate the feast of the circumcision.

(That Jesus, the Son of God, was circumcised is a useful reminder that (i) he was flesh and blood and (ii) he remained a Jew throughout his life. For the male portion of humanity thinking too deeply about the former truth may be very unpleasant!).

A fresh start?

The opening verses of the gospel of John – when read carefully – can represent a fresh start in our lives, circles and communities.  It has more than a hint of the seven days of creation in the story of Genesis 1. It also resonate, somehow, with the familiar hymn ‘Morning has broken’.  A light has shone in our darkness. That light was the light of the world and it is the light of our dark worlds  today, Sunday 3^rd January 2016.  No matter how far we have travelled or progressed or regressed or have got side-tracked – we can ‘start again’ to live life in a new way. The startling, exhilarating and shocking aspect of living as human beings is that we have the intelligence, will and understanding to ‘start again’ where we are, how we are and as what we are.  In a spiritual sense we, too, can be born again (John 1:13) whether at the age of 18 or 70. It is never too late or too early.

Perhaps it might be an exercise to write on one side of a sheet of paper our worst fears, disappointments and regrets. Put them into a tin box (or perhaps just throw them into the fire) and revisit them on 31^st December 2016.  Perhaps, then, the sky will not have fallen in after all and the very things we most feared didn’t happen but the things we never really thought of (good or bad) happen. Life is like that.

What can make the difference to our lives in 2016? John 1 gives us a clue. The Light has come into the world. We are not that light. We merely reflect that light. However, we can share in that Life that became flesh as we are and shared our toils, pains and hopes.  We need to get out and about more and see the world full of grace, full of potential and full of the glory of God hidden behind human suffering and environmental chaos.  And when we return in the evening or when we rise early in the morning the Word will be there to greet us and reassure us that we were never alone – neither in the ‘market place’ or in our own abodes.  The point is that we have already received from the fullness of God-who-is-love.  There is a saying that nature abhors a vacuum. But, there is no vacuum in our hearts if we dig deep enough. The Risen Christ already lives there.  ‘Grace upon grace’ awaits us. God desires to fill our hearts and our minds – if we let him. The opening of John hits a high theological note. Jesus was not just an extraordinary human being; he was the Logos or the Word which was with God and was God. This reading of the Good News is grounded in the flesh and blood Jesus we recognise in the nativity story but is also leading us to a faith in a God who has become flesh and blood and overturns our world and lives.

So, as we turn over a new chapter in our lives we can take responsibility for our own fresh start. May we

Thank the past

Experience today 

Embrace the future             (Bronnie Ware)

Dealing with incomprehension

 ‘…Child, why have you treated us like this?..’ (Luke 2:48)

Luke 2:41-52 (Year C: Christmas 1)

This is a story about a family. Custom and tradition. Festival and gathering. A journey back home.  A child goes missing, Worried parents.  Do the cousins know where he is?  Worry. Hell for a time.  Found him. Amazement, relief and anger for a while.  This story has all the hallmarks of one told by Mary to Luke. “Oh I remember the time he was 12. It was unbelievably difficult for me and Joseph.  We were beside ourselves. All the extended family searched for three days in Jerusalem. There were 10,000s of pilgrims from different parts of the world were there like us. Much of the time we could not understand passers-by and they could not understand us.  Some of them thought we were in the city to buy and sell our son!  When we did eventually find him there were words….  He was cheeky and said something about his ‘Father’. I didn’t understand then but I do now. I only wish Joseph were still alive today to understand what happened then. Neither of us could understand what was going on. He was so worried and it had an impact on him for the rest of his life.  But, we gradually began to understand more and more over many years that this child was very special not in a way that all children are special.  The temple officials, theologians and priests even suggested that our son might have a special calling in the Temple given his precociousness and wisdom. But, Jesus had different ideas.”

Dealing with incomprehension was Jesus’s lot in the Temple and it was Mary and Joseph’s lot with the neighbours and cousins ever since Mary was found to be pregnant while not yet with Joseph.

Images of the ‘holy family’ abounded and still abound in religious imagery, poetry and liturgy. Mary, a spotless mother with a Northern European look about her, Joseph carrying a staff or a flower everywhere he goes and Jesus a meek, mild and obedient child as it says in some Christmas hymn. In truth we know very little about Jesus and his family. What little we know is set in the context of Jesus’s ministry, mission and saving power. Family background together with the selection of events uniquely recounted in the first two chapters of Luke and in the first chapter of Matthew is hugely significant for what was the come afterwards and what was foretold according to later Christian faith and understanding of ancient Jewish history and prophecy. Everything fits, somehow, into a story that makes sense of the story of a wandering nomads in the desert (…got that spelling right for once!...) escaping captivity and seeking out a promised land somewhere. Jesus, Mary and Joseph are in that story as they were on the move while seeking refuge in Africa.  How ironic – this Christmas time – that the Saviour of the World as we believe never thought Europe or the America’s a priority. God placed his only son in the Middle East and then Africa among a pilgrim people and a family literally ‘on-the-run’.

We can only image what stresses, tensions and challenges such a way of life entailed for this holy family. It is not the plastic image we so often see and hear about. It is a very flesh and blood and very human family.  The latter-day emphasis on celibacy, other-worldliness and Euro-centric culture and power games may have robbed the story Luke is trying to tell of its vigour and surprise.  Luke was recounting (probably with the help of Mary) a real story about a real family in a real political mess that was and is the ‘Near East’ (note my language here reflects a Euro-centric world view).  Some twelve years later we revisit the family as it undergoes the trauma of losing Jesus for a few days only to find him ‘at his Father’s business’ as some English-language translations have it. Was trauma ever far from the lives of Mary and Joseph?  The little we know suggests that life was a roller coaster of trauma from a potential row over how Mary became pregnant in the first place to fleeing in terror from state terrorists in the ego of Herod Antipas all the way up to Jesus’s crucifixion and the growth of a subversive religious movement that would see Judaism split (but not by intention) and Rome compromised in the fullness of time.  And, at the age of 12, we have another trauma-story.

Some films like ‘Saving Private Ryan’ labour the point that ‘war is hell’.  The story behind Luke and the other gospels is quite different. Yes, war is hell and life can be at times for some people ‘hell’ (use of the word is deliberate here) but over and beyond this ‘hell’ there is a new life and new hope that is born in families and communities across the world.  Organisations like churches need to become more family-like at a local level to provide space for people to rediscover the good news about 21^st century whole-some families.

Surprised by mega-joy

 ‘…Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people..’ (Luke 2:10)

Luke 2:1-20 (Year C: Christmas Day)

Surprised by joy: this is a saying that aptly fits the experience of millions of children this morning. I have clear memories of that both when I was a child and when my own children were of a certain age. A messy, cold living room at 4a.m. in the morning with wrapping, batteries and instruction sheets scattered in all directions even if Santa hadn’t consumed that glass of milk or taken away this carrot for Rudolf!

Surprised by Joy is also the title of a book written by Ulster Irishman, Clive Lewis Staples. He may have taken the expression from a poem by William Wordworth when the poet forgot about the death of his daughter for a moment:

Surprised by joy — impatient as the Wind I turned to share the transport — Oh! with whom But Thee, deep buried in the silent tomb, That spot which no vicissitude can find? Love, faithful love, recalled thee to my mind — But how could I forget thee? Through what power, Even for the least division of an hour, Have I been so beguiled as to be blind To my most grievous loss? — That thought's return Was the worst pang that sorrow ever bore, Save one, one only, when I stood forlorn, Knowing my heart's best treasure was no more; That neither present time, nor years unborn Could to my sight that heavenly face restore.

Ultimately, as we look back on life so far we can say ‘one for sorrow; two for joy’. It is up to us to figure out and reframe our experiences according to this ratio. That one would have let oneself be happier is one of the five top regrets of the dying.   The message of Christmas is that tragedy does not define us. Rather, the news is good. This is a different kind of news to the kind enunciated by the Roman Emperor: it is real good news to the poorest and the least privileged of people – shepherds living a precarious life and earning a precarious living.  It is also good news for those temporarily imprisoned by loss, isolation or loneliness.  A saviour has come into our broken and sick world and we do not surrender to despair. Hope is alive and we will be surprised not just by any old sort of joy but ‘a great joy’. Not just charan (joy in ancient Greek) but mega joy – Megalēn joy.

Mothers and babies

 ‘…the child in my womb leapt for joy..’ (Luke 1:44)

Luke 1:39-44 (Year C: Advent 4)

                                                 pic: Jaccard brothers

This is a story about two mothers and two (yet to be born) babies.  It was, in all likelihood, a story of shared anxieties (not recounted here) and shared joys mixed in, no doubt, with much physical discomfort, sickness and worry. Such is life and such is the experience of mothers and pregnant women – an experience that can only be theorised and described by that half of humanity that will never know what it is really like to be pregnant and, or, to be a mother of a child or to be sick or to be insecure …….. In many respects, nature lets men get off lightly. Tradition has it (but it is only tradition) that the evangelist Luke wrote his gospel with the help of Mary the mother of Jesus. Hence, the unique birth narratives in the gospel of Luke and the memories of Jesus in the temple found in the second chapter of Luke. Whoever Luke was and however he (assuming that it was a he) gathered together his version of the good news we get a sense of a feminine perspective in much of Luke – the role of the holy spirit of God, the central point of compassion, justice, balance, relationship and caring as well as the references to the role of Mary in the Jesus story.

When Mary went to her cousin Elizabeth she brought – in her very own body – the Life that would set the world on fire.  Elizabeth seemed to realise that something extraordinary was happening in Mary’s greetings and presence. The child in Elizabeth’s womb literally jumped for joy. This might seem like poetic licence but there is no reason to exclude this happening given what women know and men don’t and what, moreover, modern science confirms about the amazing behaviour of babies in the womb.

Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting. She saw and she heard and she was attentive. Something stirred in her. Life and Joy moved her to declare ‘And why has this happened to me’ (v.43). She was filled with the Holy Spirit just as we are and can be if we see, hear, listen, attend to what is hidden and what is before us. John did not see from where he was. He heard a voice – that of Mary and through this voice he was connected to that Life that was with Mary through the grace of God. One wonders what sorts of stories were told and shared and retold by these two mothers for many years after. ‘A woman’s heart is a deep ocean of secrets’ as Old Rose said in the film ‘Titanic’. And in the gospel of Luke we are told that ‘Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart’ (Luke 2:19). It is surely the case that she continued to treasure and ponder all these words in her heart for many years before and after the visit to Elizabeth. However, Mary and Elizabeth were not mere mothers behind two great men. Their stories and witness places them as powerful women who challenge doubt, despair and – recounted after this passage in the rallying cry of the Magnificat.

But there is a sting to this Visitation story. The two unborn babies are destined to suffer and to die. One through beheading for the crime of telling it as it is; the other on a cross for ‘turning the tables’ (literally as in the Temple as well metaphorically).  There was, surely, much heart-break for both mothers as matters turned out (even if Elizabeth had died by the time her son was executed). Luke quotes Simeon as saying to Mary:

This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed—and a sword will pierce your own soul too. (Luke 2:33-35)

The joyful encounter between Mary, Elizabeth, Jesus and John ended in tragedy. Or, did it?  That other great feast of the annual Christian calendar is only a little over 3 months away.  In the resurrection we see hope beyond tragedy; life beyond death and renewal beyond decay. Before we get to resurrection there is flight and there is exodus followed by a long journey through barren places. The story of Israel is our story as she wanders around a desert. But, the story of those are not of Israel is also our story because God’s generosity has no limits then or now. Within months of the encounter with Elizabeth, Mary would be fleeing with Joseph and the child Jesus just as millions are doing this Christmas in various parts of Southern and central Europe, Western Asia and North Africa. And within months of that encounter many children would be massacred in the area around Bethlehem:

‘A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.’

A voice is heard today in Ramah and the surrounding countries. It is one of wailing and loud lamentation as Rachel weeps for her children and refuses, in front of our TV screens, to be consoled.  Sky News may not be picking this up very clearly today as we watch from our comfort zones of Northern Europe and America.  But, millions of dispossessed, terrorised and hungry brothers and sisters are coming our way. Let’s do practical things to be open and welcoming of all. We never know but we might be entertaining angels. Joy might stir within us as it did in Elizabeth when her cousin called in with Life.

Living simply so that others may simply live

 ‘…Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you..’ (Luke 3:13)

Luke 3:10-18 (Year C: Advent 3)

If each of us collected ‘no more than the amount prescribed’ for us the world would be a different place indeed. If only…

Wars, disputes and conflicts over land, money, houses, honour, status, authority are a feature of human history since the beginning of time.  Part of the problem is that we cannot agree on what is ‘the prescribed’ amount of something. ‘We got here first so that land is ours!’ or ‘We deserve special treatment because we are victims’ or ‘What we have we hold’ or ‘I am/we are entitled to this’ or ‘this person does not deserve that’ or ‘We can do it because we can do it: tough’. Variations of these tunes and many more are played out across human history and across the globe today and even in our homes, workplaces and churches.  There is hardly no better way to start an argument than among supposedly religious persons who claim the fullness of truth and certainty and the right to denigrate or exclude or patronise someone else (in the latter case it might run like this line – ‘they don’t have the full picture or sacraments or truth or….’).

Much of these conflicts are born of distrust. Distrust – in turn – is born of experiences of bad behaviour. It is a deadly vicious circle. Which comes first? – distrust or bad behaviour: It is hard to tell. Insecurity is another driver of conflict as well as a thirst for absolutism (not the absolute).  We reveal insecurity the more we argue for something and against someone else. It is as if their way of being and having is a threat to our fragile hold on something.

Where we are today is on the cusp of a momentous change in the conditions of this mother earth where we have been planted. Love your neighbour takes a particular urgency because it means loving our children – the next generation. There is more than weather extremes and rising temperatures and flooding at stake here. We simply don’t know for sure how much or how long it will take but we can be sure of one thing – unless action is taken at global and local levels the future planet and the conditions for those living there does not look pretty. To put it another way, we are consuming one and half earths. This cannot continue. Eventually, something gives. It becomes a choice of ‘de-growth’ or ‘de-carbonise’ or both. Leaders and peoples can continue to duck and dive on what it takes to begin to fix the underlying causes of environmental degradation but, eventually, the reality and the truth will catch up with us all.

As we spare a thought for the millions freezing to death in various deserts of the middle east, north Africa, the Mediterranean sea and south east Europe do we take seriously the call to share? And, if millions of euros on housing, feeding and clothing millions of refugees is beyond the budget of the most wealthy nations of the earth how come trillions are spent on weapons of destruction which, it would appear, invites more revenge, conflict and displacement if the experience of the last decade is anything to go by? And closer to home we are witnessing the spectacle of a growing crisis in accommodation as billions have flowed through the finance system but it is staid that we cannot afford to fix the problem of homelessness because it is too complicated.

The story of John the Baptist ministering in the desert and, according to other accounts, subsisting on locusts and wild honey (Mark 1:6) and preaching a message of repentance may carry an ironic message for all of today.  Though we may not be living in an isolated desert clothed in camel hair with a belt round our waists and with wild honey and locusts as our staple diet as we criticise various supposedly persons in authority as ‘vipers’ (John lacked tact in these matters and was beheaded for this), we need to re-examine the way we live and how our civic participation impacts on the well-being of future generations. We know that the current patterns of globalisation, trade, consumption and energy utilisation are not sustainable. What are we doing about it?  Including a prayer of intercession this Sunday is surely a great idea but doing something about it next week and next year is vital. Laudato Si (Praise be to you) was the title of a historic document issued this year by Pope Francis. If this year is the year of praise let next year be the year of action: Fiat voluntas tua (your will be done …).

Preparing a way in the wilderness (or having it prepared for you)

 ‘…that you may be able to stand before the Son of Man.’ (Luke 21:36)

Luke 3:1-6 (Year C: Advent 2)

Psalm 141 (or 142 depending on which version you use) opens up with the following lines:

‘ With all my voice I cry to the Lord, with all my voice I entreat the Lord.  I pour out my trouble before him; I tell him all my distress’

The evangelist, Luke, announces the beginning of the ministry of John the Baptist ‘in the wilderness’. He quotes directly from the prophet Isaiah 40:3-5:

A voice cries out: ‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.’

In our own wildernesses we, too, cry out except that we may not be consciously aware that we are crying out. Even more so, we don’t even know who we are crying out to and why.

The reality about John, a cousin of Jesus, is that he lived wildly and recklessly. He didn’t conform. Yet, people sought him out in the wilderness. Eventually one day his cousin showed up and nothing was ever the same again. John the Baptist continued to do what he did but, now, everything was different. Someone else ‘greater’ than he had arrived on the scene and the task was now to provide signs towards that other.

And so it is at this time of year and whatever time of life you, the reader, find yourself in.  Our pathways should lead to joy, from joy and through joy. Yet, joy often seems lacking in this ‘vale of tears’. As a consequence, we seek comfort in this or that and find little or no joy in ‘this or that’. We may even seek comfort in ‘religion’ which becomes our blanket and prop. Without realising it, Karl Marx was not entirely wrong when he wrote: ‘Religion is the opium of the masses’. Rather, true religion is about something that goes beyond comfort blankets and stories before bed time. It is about costly grace, costly choices and costly lives as Dietrich Bonhoeffer understood discipleship to mean in an increasingly ‘religionless’ world.

‘All flesh shall see the salvation of God’. This is important because the gospel of Luke was, apparently, written for pagans in Greece (that’s us, so to speak).  All flesh – all races, all genders, left and right, straight and gay, ‘religious’ and ‘non-religious’, high-church and low-church, broad church and narrow church, liberal church and conservative-traditional church, all peoples – are called today ‘to see the salvation of God’. The writers of the Biblical books were hung up on the idea of ‘all’.  All are called to salvation. Inspired by John Wesley, many Christians attach special importance to four cornerstones and four great ‘Alls’ of our belonging to Christ:

All people need to be saved.
All people can be saved.
All people can know they are saved.
All people can be saved to the uttermost

Are we up to the challenge? Are we ready? Do we care? We can only start with ourselves.  Even if we feel or think that we are not up to the challenge; are not ready and do not care there is a power and a love bigger than each one of us that is preparing a way through our hearts to joy and a peace and a freedom in the midst of this personal and social wilderness.

‘By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.’ (Luke 1:78-79)

Watch out! We have been warned!