Augmented Reality?

I never thought I'd end up preaching a sermon on Pokémon! However, if part of what we are called to do is describe the things of the world and make connections to with the challenge of the Gospel, then the question of 'augmented reality' merits consideration.  

According to the Surrey Advertiser, Guildford has been invaded: by Pokémon.

Stag Hill is fruitful territory for those collecting Zubats, Drowzees, Raticates, Spearows and even a Meowth.

If this makes no sense, let me take a step back.  Pokémon Go is a mobile app - an updated version of a video game which was popular in the 1990s (which passed me by at at the time). The aim is to seek out, catch and train animated creatures - whose names echo their real world equivalents.

So far, so unremarkable you might think; but as an augmented reality game, Pokémon Go enables players to interact within and between virtual and real worlds.

Dotted across our town are Pokéstops where you can collect items needed to play the game. There are five within the cathedral precincts!  All around us there are virtual fluttering leaves, indicating the proximity of Pokémon.


People of all ages are going on walks; discovering new landmarks; becoming tourists in their own neighbourhoods. If you see groups gathering gazing at their phones, flicking seemingly invisible objects, perhaps you've come across a Pokémon Gym where characters can compete and test their strength.

In the cathedral  office, on the university campus, at the station, in the supermarket car park, along the river, outside the Friary Centre... commuters, teenagers, lay clerks, shoppers and even a Canon can be spotted building their collections.

So, whether you're an active participant or not, we can't help noticing that it is having an impact on our public landscape. It's an individual pursuit; but it generates informal gatherings, People literally congregate - attracted by animation breaking into reality.  

It's no accident that the launch was timed with the end of term. It might seem trivial, but I wonder what else is going on.

Is there a longing for playfulness amidst the bewilderment of political upheaval? There's something nostalgic as well as innovative, a harking back to childhood. Is it good that people of all ages are exploring their local neighbourhoods on foot? Yet it's also disconcerting that this is in done whilst inhabiting a parallel universe, cut off from reality

On Friday evening, there were more people in and around the cathedral seeking out Pokémon than there were watching our glorious peregrine falcons. How do we communicate that this place is more than just a Pokéstop but somewhere of welcome, beauty, inspiration and worship?

Today we recall that, like James the Apostle, we are to witness to the good news of Christ with joy and boldness; we are to draw people to the fire of God's love.  As we come to terms with the allure of augmented reality, we are called to explore a life that is more real. 

Life that is life. Life that is about experiencing every moment, every conversation, every task, every meal more deeply - as opportunities to glimpse something of God's grace, mercy, and love in the ordinary.

In a world of Pokémon, we see that human beings are entranced by something more; yet, we know such games will go out of fashion, leaving a void waiting to be filled with some other fad or activity. Perhaps this game has slowed down the pace of our experiences, encouraging us to wait patiently and pay attention to what's going on around us.

Of course the paradox is that paying attention to the virtual world may mean we miss the real human need or possibility of encounter with God.   How to enable people to walk into, rather than past, the children's garden - to take time to pause, reflect, rest and pray? Perhaps we hope that being there will arouse curiosity that it's a place which is more than just a Pokéstop.

This is where the challenge of our texts cuts across the Pokémon phenomenon. Ultimately, it isn't life giving. However much fun it is, it's short-lived. It doesn't satisfy or transform; it's playful without generating kinship. It is a worldly false attraction, or in the words of our collect a 'worldly and carnal affection'.

James' life, work and context  was by no means devoid of such claims on our attention either. He demonstrated a radical and single-minded devotion to walking with Jesus. He left his father, livelihood, friends, all that he had and all that was familiar. He walked the land with Jesus; he visited sacred sites. This was not augmented reality in the way that Pokémon is. It was augmented in the experience of the nearness of God's Kingdom in ordinary, full of love, life and hope.

James followed Jesus in some of the most intimate moments of his ministry - glimpsing glory, restored hope and renewed life. He was there when the crowd wanted to hear more and see more; when they sang hosanna and when they cried crucify. Called by name, he saw his Lord betrayed by a kiss; re-called by the power of the Spirit, he gave his life witnessing to Jesus' resurrection.

Perhaps James continued to reflect on the episode we heard tonight. Perhaps like him, we sense the desperate need and extraordinary hope of Jairus and an unnamed woman. One falls to his knees, begging repeatedly in public; he's articulate, determined and trusting. One reaches out to touch, wordlessly placing her trust in him; in her determined 'if only'.

One watched a precious child fade from health and vitality; one had endured alienation, pain and worsening health. And Jesus goes with the one; he turns towards the other. His power brings peace and healing, he publicly acknowledges her unspoken faith. His power cuts through wailing, weeping and mocking laughter. In a private, tender moment he restores a daughter's life; he doesn't court amazement, but simply instructs others that this 12 year old girl must eat.

Jesus met people where they were. Unlike the Pokémon player, he isn't capturing them with a triumphant 'Gotcha'.  Rather he frees them - allowing the grace of God to work through the dignity of human agency.  He makes them whole - and draws them into the Kingdom.  This is the augmented reality we are called to inhabit.

For many, this place is just another Pokéstop: a place to pick up the items we need to seek out, attract, find and capture elusive virtual creatures. But it is more than that.


For us, and for our world, this place is where we can learn what is real. 

Where we can sink to our knees in longing and distress; where we're restored, forgiven healed;  where we find new and deeper bonds of kinship; where we can learn to pray in words; where the Spirit sighs within us wordlessly; where we explore the creativity of solitude; where we can playfully and imaginatively be drawn into the good news; where  that God was in Jesus Christ reconciling the world to himself.

Even now, his call on us to love is very near to us: on our lips and in our heart.

This is the augmented reality of which the book of Deuteronomy bears witness: love God, walk in his ways, choose life. We are to love, obey and hold fast to God's faithfulness. Choose life.


© Julie Gittoes 2016

The readings for the Eve of James the Apostle were: Deuteronomy 30: 11-end and Mark 5:21-end

Kindness to strangers

The kindness of strangers: Are good Samaritans the exception or norm?

So ran a headline on the BBC news website only 10 days or so ago.  

Uplifting stories of strangers intervening to offer practical help or even to save a life catch our attention. Some of those momentary encounters cost very little. Some might seem undramatic, others heroic; a matter human instinct, just doing my job, or being in the right place at the right time. 

Vincent van Gogh: The Good Samaritan canvas (Kroller-Muller Museum, Otterlo)

In the face of fear, visible intentional support of the other strengthens bonds of community.

The BBC article drew on social psychology to explore what happens when we witness an attack, an emergency or person who's taken ill. Our minds go through rapid, unconscious, calculations in an instant. Is it dangerous? Can I help? Will others step in? What's my responsibility. 'The longer you leave it', says Professor Levine, 'the harder it is to make a decision'. 

We might walk on by.

But if one person acts, others join in. We are most likely to intervene, the article suggests when we 'feel some sort of group kinship with the victim, even something as superficial as wearing the same football shirt'.

 A sense of shared identity; a sort of group kinship.

We are different from one another: what we eat and our accent; the languages we speak and what we wear; our name, our family. What matters, is how we respond to difference. Our identity is shaped in relation to others; we recognise shared concerns or passions, a common humanity.

The imperative to strengthen bonds of recognition across difference is vital to our national life; to take a stand against racism and prejudice; working together because our liberation is bound up with the other. 

We face generational and regional divides; we've been confronted by normative judgements about motherhood and competitive claims about having a stake in our future.  All this is disrupted in today's reading. We are too look beyond difference and see the stranger as an intimate, our own familiar friend.

Perhaps the familiarity of the story makes us complacent; we disconnect it from the challenging questions which surround it. Let's pay attention afresh.

Can we do anything to inherit eternal life? Perhaps it's a trick question; inheritance is itself a gift. We can't do anything to earn it. Yet it is bound up with relationship or kinship; with the nature of love.  In inviting the lawyer to answer on his own terms, we're taken to the heart of the commandments. To love God and neighbour.

How can we love the other as they are unless we're not first filled with the love of God? 

Look around you: loving one another in our difference is a demanding task, even when people are quite like us. It's more than following Jesus as an ethical role model.  The energy and motivation to love deeply, consistently and compassionately flows from the Spirit at work in us.

If Jesus raises the bar on our loving, then the lawyer wants to know the terms and conditions: he wants clarification, who qualifies?

The laws of Leviticus talks of commitments to two kinds of 'neighbour': your own kith and kin, one in your own family line; the stranger, the alien in your midst.   Rather than give such a definition, Jesus tells a story which stretches our imaginations.

We imagine what it is to be attacked, wounded, abandoned, and vulnerable. 
We consider the rules, duties and fears which constrain us.
We contemplate the outsider, despised, who risks everything in compassion for an other.

On seeing a semi-clad, battered and unconscious man, what should the priest do?  There are no ready markers of identity. He goes through the same subconscious calculations as we do: weighing the risks and responsibilities; thinking through consequences. The demands of ritual purity are heavy; he might face punishment.

Ferdinand Hodle:The Good Samaritan (private collection)

The Levite grapples with his own conscience. The one going ahead of him, didn't stop. Does he know better? Would acting undermine or insult the priest? He's a by-stander, a passer by; he keeps going.

The one who is moved with compassion is a stranger. This is the tipping point of Jesus' story.  He acts with hope and care. He responds without judgement; human vulnerability is a sufficient marker of shared identity.

He uses all his resources: oil, wine and cloth to bind up wounds; he takes time and energy; disrupting his journey and using his own transport. He commits his money to care for this unknown yet intimate other.

He risked his life. It was not safe for a Samaritan to seek help. His response extends beyond the act of rescue to an open ended and costly commitment. 

There are no limits.

He binds up and he brings healing balm.  He cleanses and saves. He restores life.

That sounds like a description of the very nature of God.

In the Samaritan, Jesus points us to himself, God with us: the healer who draws all people to himself.

The scholar Kenneth Bailey invites us to see this story afresh through Middle-Eastern eyes, saying: 'in this parable the Samaritan extends a costly demonstration of unexpected love to the wounded man, and in the process Jesus again interprets the life changing power of costly love that would climax at his cross'.

In so doing, he reframes the question for all who walk in his steps: not who is my neighbour, where do I draw the lines in loving; rather to whom to I become a neighbour?

Like the Lawyer, we realise we can't earn eternal life, it is pure gift.  Yet we can become a neighbour; in Christ and the power of the Spirit we can manifest the boundless love of God.

If our lives are woven into God's story, the ethical demands placed on us mean looking beyond language, race, religion, gender, marital or economic status.  

As synod enters into shared conversations about sexuality today, we are acutely aware that as a church we too are learning to respond to the other with compassion; we learn humility in facing those we've wounded, we've stood alongside, we've disagreed with. We pray for them today.

What Jesus' teaches is more than 'kindness to strangers'; he calls us to narrow the gaps that separate others and to attend to a shared identity and group kinship in God.

Bridging that gap is manifested in the church's commitment to education as a means of reducing inequality and fear of the other. But is also manifested in our lives, moment by moment. 

We aren't called to be by-standers but a responsive pilgrim people. Our nation needs channels of mercy not hate. In the train station, supermarket or office, we are called acts of courtesy which bring dignity; in speech and action challenging all that dehumanises.

We are to embody the promises of God: we who take bread and wine, become one in Christ. As his body, we are called to generous self-giving. By the power of his Spirit worship and service are one.

That's Paul's point in his letter to the Colossians:  his letter is full of faith, hope and love; patience and joy; grace and strength. Our fruitfulness is rooted in the truth of the Gospel and unending prayer for each other. Nourished by God's goodness, we can bear the radical claim of love.

© Julie Gittoes 2016

Readings for 10th July 2016, Trinity 7:  Colossians 1:1-14; Luke 10: 25-37 

Kindness to strangers: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-36596511

Here because we're here

On Friday, I was struck by the Tweets posted by Cambridge University Library: they were snippets from Siegfried Sassoon's diary:
The sun flashes on bayonets + tiny figures advance steadily + disappear.
Clouds of drifting smoke - brown, blue, pinkish + gray: shrapnel bursting.
Just eaten my last orange. I am looking at a sunlit picture of hell.
The intimacy of the handwriting; the ink making visible the tiniest fragments of story. Such glimpses make us stop of life in the face of death was both compelling and disruptive. In something so fragile yet tangible, we glimpse something of our humanity. The ordinary in the face of horror.  We imagine the truth of that and piece it together. Jeremy Deller's project and the #Wereherebecause  We pay attention to the story; to the gaps.  In silence, art, words and song. All that was on my mind as I preached on Sunday for the feast of Thomas the Apostle.

Matins 3rd July 2016: St Thomas the Apostle - II Samuel 15:17-21; John 11:1-16

O Saviour of the world, who by thy Cross and precious Blood hast redeemed us, 
Save us, save us and help us, we humbly beseech thee, O Lord.
Strengthen ye the weak hands - William Henry Harris.

On Friday, more than a thousand volunteer actors loitered in military uniform in stations and mingled with commuters in public squares. If spoken to, they remained silent; offering instead a card bearing the name, date of birth and rank of a man killed on the first day of the Somme. Periodically they broke into a song sang in the Trenches: we're here because we're here because we're here because we're here....

A tribute to the fallen. 
A piece of performance art. 
A making present of the past. 
A reminder that death impinges on life.

Archbishop Justin described WWI as a 'catastrophic political failure' and cited 'complacency about peace' as the biggest disaster we could have.  We face a turbulent time in our national life. When regions, families and generations are divided, it seems as if we are strangers to one another; yet in the condemnation of racism, we declare we are one flesh; we called to demonstrate love which casts out fear and reflects God's faithfulness.

Amidst disruption, we remember the ApostleThomas: pigeonholed as 'doubting' yet the one who made the bold declaration of faith, 'my Lord and my God'. This morning, we are plunged into two stories  which seem utterly unrelated to each other, disconnected to the Thomas we think we know, and apparently incomplete in themselves; we're left with cliff hanger moments.

Neither episode has an auspicious beginning:

David leaves Jerusalem.

Lazarus is gravely ill.

The first reading hints at some sort of political upheaval; it raises questions of belonging and loyalty. John meanwhile draws us into a moment of family crisis; Jesus words arouse our curiosity about love and death. In the midst of memories and experiences of uncertainty, perhaps these texts open up the possibility of self-examination and renewed hope.

The previous chapters of 2 Samuel have recounted political intrigue beyond anything we're likely to read about in the Sunday papers: betrayal, rape, division, violence, exile and espionage.  David's is usurped by his own son, Absalom, who successfully wins the hearts of the people with promises of justice.

In the face of such rebellion, King David pauses mid-flight and watches his officials and others pass by. It's a poignant moment:  looking back at Jerusalem, the seat of his power; looking towards the wilderness, an uncertain future. 

In the face of his son's disloyalty, who can he trust? Has he lost divine favour, will those marching past remain with him?

David encounters Ittai: a professional Philistine soldier, known to him. Perhaps this foreigner is more loyal than his own kin.  He addresses him saying, why are you here? Go back, a foreigner has no obligation to be with us; Go back, take your family, rest in the city; why wander about with a fleeing King?

Ittai offers unwavering loyalty. It is the outsider who sets aside self-interest; he exemplifies faithfulness and truth; he becomes a sign of assurance and comfort to a grieving king. He commits to being David's servant; dwelling with him, journeying alongside him; remaining steadfast in life and death. The stranger embodies a blessing of love and faithfulness.

Perhaps at this moment of loss and disruption, betrayal and dispossession, one act of human trust invites David to remember that God is with him.  It changes the way we hear those words: we're here because we're here...

In life and death, there's a glimpse of faithfulness.

In John's Gospel, we hear for the first time of Jesus' love for a particular person: Lazarus his friend; the one who is beloved. We hear of this love in the face of crisis: he's sick, his strength is fading. Yet Jesus speaks without alarm - this illness won't lead to death. He loves Lazarus, yet remains with the disciples. He speaks with assurance that the one who sleeps will awake.

What sort of love is this? 

The euphemism of sleep gives way to the unequivocal reality of death: it is love in the face of death; love that brings glory; which sheds light in darkness.

Now Jesus speaks of going to be with Lazarus - in death. Yet to go to him now is to risk losing his own life. In going to Judea, Jesus will weep at Lazarus' grave; he will be moved by the heartrending pain of grief that we know too well. He will also demonstrate his power over death in this particular act of love; and in so doing face his own death. The scandalous power of his love, revealed on the cross, reconciles the whole world to God.

In loving, Jesus embraces death.
This love is vulnerable in its solidarity.
Love that is with us: love that summons us to stand alongside others in their sorrow and fear.
In the words of the psalmist: Love that careth for the stranger.
We're here because we're here because we're here...

And Thomas says: let us go, that we may die with him.

St Thomas the Apostle (2006, private collection, Australia)

Thomas is fearless; he's without doubt. Thomas speaks boldly not knowing the cost, but following light and love. Thomas stakes a claim to loyalty; he takes the first step towards the cross.

We too are called to walk in that way: we are called to solidarity with the other; called to life in the face of death.  

Faithfulness to God demands love in the face of transience and turbulence. The way of the cross is an alternative to fearful isolation or intolerant nationalism. Echoing the example of Elie Wiesel, we can't remain silent. He said 'we must always take sides'; we must do this 'whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation'.

Thomas made a decision and so must we. His confession of Christ as Lord is ours too. 

We are called to love not indifference; to remain faithful in despair; to hold on to life in the face of death. Even in darkness, light shines.  By the power of the Spirit, may confess the scandalous and vulnerable love of Christ; as God's pilgrim people, amongst commuters and in public spaces, we're here because we're here because... we embody that reconciling love, living with the other. 



© Julie Gittoes 2016