The gate of the year

The text of a sermon preached at Guildford Cathedral Evensong on 31st December 2017 - New Year's Eve and Eve of the Naming of Jesus.  I'm grateful to the LSE blog for information about Minnie Louise Haskins. The texts were: Jeremiah 23: 1-6 and Colossians 2:8-17

NBC New Sydney New Year

And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year:

“Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.”

And he replied:

“Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God.

That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.”

As we stand at the gate of the year, these words, first broadcast by George VI in Christmas 1938, continue to strike a chord.  Then, as now, there was a veil of uncertainty over our national life. Then, as now, we long for to tread safely into the unknown. In the face of the inconstancy of our resolutions, we look for light.

New Year’s Eve seems to be met with either a degree of ambivalence or boundless enthusiasm: it’s celebrated on the banks of the Thames, amongst close friends and family, with music and dancing or alone with a glass of fizz, a favourite film or an early night. 

Give me light…

Before Jools Holland opens his Annual Hootenanny, 2018 has already been greeted with fireworks from Sydney to Singapore; as the words of Auld Lang Syne fade, New York and Mexico will be counting down the final hours of 2017. 

Give me light …. light that I may tread safely…

At the gate of the year, the Observer Magazine offered a round up of the most compelling stories of 2017, witnessed at first hand: from the horror of Grenfell Tower and the plight of the Rohingya people; from the Oscars to Glastonbury. The New Review steers away from Trump and Brexit and speculates about the hottest talents and trends in 2018. 

And in the face of the unknown we share with Jeremiah the distress at what has been scattered or destroyed; we long for wise and just leadership, for light and for safety. At the gate of the year, we receive this reply: ‘Go into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God’.

We may associate them with the speech of a King, but they were penned by Minnie Louise Haskins. Today, she is remembered as an academic from the London School of Economics. As a social scientist, her professional achievements were remarkable - pursuing industrial welfare and the cooperation between employer and employee; contributing to the establishment of what we now know as the Charted Institute of Personnel and Development. 

This deep concern for welfare was not merely intellectual or theoretical. It was an embodied expression of her faith in a God, into whose hands she placed her own life.  Minnie’s famous words as we stand at the gate of a new year, are the preamble to a poem she wrote called God Knows. It formed part of a short collection published to raise funds. To raise funds for the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society whose work took her from Lambeth to India.  

Minnie Louise Haskins (LSE)

Ill health prompted her return to Woolwich, where she ran a hostel for munitions workers and supervised a factory department. All this before she went to study at the LSE. It seems as Minnie routinely set out into the unknown. She lived by her own words - placing her trust in God who was ‘better than light and safer than a known way’; guiding and upholding her.

If her faith so shaped her life, it’s no wonder that a senior tutor described her as ‘a woman of unusual capacity and character … a rare understanding and sympathy and infinite patience, combined with a great deal of love and interest in people’. 

Such a tribute and personal biography would stand out amongst any New Year’s Honours list. My hunch is that Minnie didn’t seek such recognition. Her story is told on the LSE website but her legacy can’t be persevered in aspic. In our generation we need to equip and pray for Christians working, like Minnie, in welfare reform and human resources, poets and academics; volunteers and missionaries at home and overseas.   

Minnie’s life is a microcosm of the witness of the church: standing at the gate of the new year and facing the uncertainty with vision. In the few verses before the portion of Colossians heard this evening, Paul describes characteristics which are marks of a faithful church: a people knit together in love, with courageous hearts; people who encouraged others and were equipped with wisdom. 

El Greco - St Paul

For Paul - and perhaps for Minnie - the imaginative explorations of faith and boldness in its outworking begin and end with the truth that Jesus is Lord.  Like them, our faith needs to be deeply rooted and continually built up - by cultivating habits of prayer and bible reading, and the compassion and conviction of others. 

On this New Year’s Eve, we celebrate the naming and circumcision of Jesus Christ: the one in whom the fullness of God dwells; the one in whom our humanity comes to fullness. In a very few verses, Paul names the one who is safer than the known way; one whose light shines in the darkness and is not overcome. This is his name: the Lord of righteousness; the promised Saviour.

At the gate of the year, we are not to be tempted by complex philosophies or superstitions; our hearts aren’t to be ruled by fake news or star signs.  Our diet regimes and resolutions are but a shadow of the truth. For we are to place our trust in Christ. In baptism, we share his life, death and risen life: or as our collect puts it, the image of God in us is wonderfully restored. 

We stand at the gate of the year knowing this: that trespasses have been erased. We who wound and are wounded by acts of mistrust, betrayal, selfishness and manipulation stand in the light of the cross. 

And like Minnie and many others, we are invited to go out into the darkness; into the of darkness of poverty, injustice and any kind of distress; into the darkness with a light that never fails; in the power of the Spirit we are to be fruitful and multiply in acts of patience, love and welfare in the interests of others: 

‘Put your hand into the Hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way’.

Julie Gittoes 2017 ©  

Comfort, O comfort ye!

This week I've been thinking about theological anthropology - and the way in which the Eucharist might shape our understanding of what it is to be human before God, and with one another. 

However, after last night's performance of Messiah at the Cathedral, I found that the opening recitative 'Comfort ye' was lodged in my mind.What light these two things mean in the context of the ministry of witness John the Baptist. 

The texts were:  Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11; 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24; John 1:6-8, 19-28.

Advent three: the light shining in the darkness

Last night, a story unfolded; of hope, struggle, joy and triumph.

The music captivated and inspired.

There were standing ovations.

It was an emotional journey.

But there were no jives, quick steps of show dances; no quest for a glitter ball.

For this wasn’t #StrictlyFinal

Last night, a story unfolded; of hope, struggle, joy and triumph.

The music captivated and inspired.

There were standing ovations.

It was an emotional journey.

This place resounded with orchestra and chorus:

For this was Messiah.

A tenor voice breaks in: disrupting the melancholic strings.

A word hanging in the air: Comfort.

Again: Comfort ye.

Words of God spoken to his people facing the distress and dislocation of exile.

Words of God which echo throughout the generations; which continue to resonate with us in the seasons of our lives. 

In the midst of political upheaval and personal anxiety; in the midst of the creativity and joy, untidiness and complexity of our lives;  in the midst of the uncertainty of life and the certainty of death: there’s a clarion call comfort ye my people.

To hear Messiah the midst of Advent, heightens our sense of waiting with expectation: for the light to break into darkness; for glory to be revealed; for healing, rejoicing and tidings of peace.

Handel’s musical mastery is in the space he gives for words of prophecy, hope, judgement and joy to unfold; and in doing so, those words enfold us.  

The conductor, the late Christopher Hogwood said of Messiah: ‘it is a mediation rather than a drama of personalities, lyrical in method; the narration of the story is carried on by implication, and there is no dialogue’.

This meditation is an interplay of words and music which intensifies our experience of God’s ways and our human condition. This concentration of promise and fulfilment - moving us from creation to new creation - is generous and expansive. Allowing us to pray and ponder; being comforted and challenged. It becomes a dialogue as we are drawn into the story.

Comfort, O comfort ye, my people.

I wonder what might happen if we entered into our familiar pattern of worship in that same way - as a lyrical meditation on God’s story. An enacted story in which we play our part - listening, responding, receiving and being changed by what unfolds.

When he was congratulated on the effect the Messiah  had on an audience, Handel is reported to have said:

 ‘I should be sorry if I only entertained them, I wish to make them better.’ 

There is something profoundly sacramental about this: words of scripture are proclaimed with power. They are ‘voiced’: voiced with human breath and song. The gift of our creaturely embodiment becomes a means of grace, comfort and healing.

Comfort ye!

In this Eucharist, we are given a lens through which to see ourselves and our world: a lens which invites us to recognise God’s faithfulness and promise to us;  to encounter God with us in Jesus our Emmanuel; to be renewed as God’s people by the power of the Spirit. 

Here we are attentive to God’s commandments, faithfulness, forgiveness, love and blessing. Here we name  our desires, frustrations, imperfections, brokenness and joy; seeking forgiveness for all that separates us and giving thanks for signs of God’s gifts of kindness, hospitality and friendship. 

All this might be a response to that prophetic, lyrical plea: Comfort ye! 

The cry of the the tenor’s recitative is taken up in our lives, before God in our world.

Comfort is a recurrent theme in Isaiah: in the passage we hear today, he gives substance to that  refrain of ‘comfort ye’. The oppressed, broken-hearted, captive, and grief-stricken find good news, release, gladness and healing. 

This is the passage of scripture which Jesus read in the synagogue in Nazareth. He is the Messiah. The one who will both bind up our wounds and free us from all that binds us. 

Handel’s Messiah doesn’t focus on the things that Jesus did - the people he called by name, the parables he told, the meals he shared or the miracles he performed.  And yet, as in this Eucharist, we are given space to encounter Emmanuel - God with us. 

He is the light of the world; the lamb of God. The rejected one who bears our grief. The crucified one who brings judgement.   Judgement as the rebuke when we do not share God’s love of justice and mercy, pursuing instead our own selfish ways, diminishing others in the process. 

And still God says, Comfort ye! 

Comfort because God so loved the world, so loved us, that his Son bears that rebuke: the Hallelujah chorus greets not a birth alone, but a death which defeats death; a recompense that brings everlasting covenant and blessing. A judgement of forgiveness which brings forth tidings of peace.  

Comfort, O comfort ye!

John the Baptist isn’t named in Messiah - but we do hear the refrain found on his lips in today’s Gospel:  ‘I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord’.

St John the Baptist: El Paso Museum of Art 

Jacopo del Casentino and assistant (c. 1330)

John isn’t someone we readily associate with comfort. Descriptions of him illustrate his abandonment of earthly comforts: living in the desert, wearing camel hair, eating locusts and wild honey.  He discomforted others - being willing to speak truthfully to Herod about his abuse of power. 

John’s Gospel most succinctly distils his vocation. He is the one who witnesses to the one who does bring comfort: he testifies to the light for the sake of others, that all might believe and find comfort.   

John is a humble witness.  His isolation draws people to him, seeking hope and comfort. In the wilderness they find a path of repentance, turning and retuning to God’s ways. 

When questioned, he replies three times confirming bluntly who he is not. 

When he does answer, it is to point to one who is coming. 

He is allows space: awakening new hope; fostering a sense of expectation. 

John’s humility points to the one who will come in the smallness of infancy; from the obscurity of a small town. The one who is greater than he is does not wield power and might. 

Our Messiah will come and stand on muddy river banks - sharing our humanity and restoring our dignity.  He will walk the land bringing love to those on the margins and shining light into the dark places of our hearts. 

Comfort ye!

Jean Vanier in his commentary on John, invites us to lead people to this Jesus, following the example of John. Like him we are not seek followers for ourselves or our own glory; they speak truthfully and with courage. He writes: 

They tell their story.

They tell how Jesus is healing their hearts of stone, 

leading them into the world of universal love and compassion

and breaking down barriers of culture, fear and sin

that close them up in themselves.

Witnesses tell how Jesus is transforming their lives

and bring them a new inner freedom, peace and joy.

We too are to be credible witnesses of this hope: as Paul reminds us, we do this by being rooted in prayer and listening to the prophets; being alert to the work of the Spirit; learning to live joyfully in the present. 

The one who calls us if faithful: in bread and wine, body and blood, Christ extends the horizons of our imaginations with a vision of flourishing, justice and peace.  Here we are formed as whole persons - within the body of Christ - receiving healing and nourishment in order that we might be with others, breath by breath. 

Comfort ye, o comfort ye, my people.

© Julie Gittoes 2017

Sheep and goats

Yesterday we celebrated the Feast of Christ the King. As I was preparing to preach - including reading a Saturday paper - I was struck by the ways in which political cartoons seek to provoke and persuade in a world of turmoil.  I wondered if parables served a similar purpose - engaging our imaginations to challenge our attitudes or behaviours.  

In his commentary on Matthew, the theologian Stanley Hauerwas points out that there are those who ‘claim to need power to do good but in fact just need power’. Our shepherd-king reveals the fallacy of that; and uses the parable of sheep and goats to enable us to reflect on our place in God's Kingdom.  The texts were:  Ezekiel 34:11-6, 20-24; Ephesians 1:15-end; Matthew 25: 31-end

Political cartoonists have an uncanny knack of distilling complex news stories and political agendas into a single image. 

In The Telegraph, “Nature Notes” combined Brexit negotiations and animal sentience with caricatures of Boris Johnson and Michael Gove as ‘infant puppies’ which ‘whilst exuding great charm, are just agony’.

Meanwhile, The Guardian’s Martin Rowson depicts those same politicians in the Workhouse  of ‘Sovereign Penury” alongside Theresa May in leopardskin kitten-heels: the graffiti on the walls reads ‘Give up all hope’, ‘The wages of sin is stagnant’ and ‘Eternal Austerity’.

Cartoons provoke and persuade. To understand them, we need to interpret the exaggerated symbolism, alongside the captions and characters; we pay attention to the details, allusions and the use of irony. They make sense within the context of a wider narrative or set of situations. The same is true of parables - Jesus uses images and allusions to prompt us to think and act as God’s people.

What might your favourite cartoonist make of today’s parable: nations under judgement, acts of mercy and the division of the blessed and accursed. Who would “Nature Notes” depict as sheep and goats? How would Rowson express eternal life and eternal punishment alongside eternal austerity?

Such musing aren’t out of place. For we, like the disciples, live within the same matrix of earthly loyalties, international upheavals and domestic uncertainties. Like them, we need to learn how to live well in the face of change and adversity, by placing our trust in God’s faithfulness.

Wenceslaus Hollar: Goats, sheep and mole

The story of the sheep and goats is the last in a series of parables which Jesus deployed in response to the disciples’ admiration of the grandeur of the Temple.  As Canon Paul reminded us, Jesus named the transience of worldly powers and impressive buildings; emboldening them - and us - to seek God’s kingdom.  

Parables - like cartoons - shed light on our motives, desires and the consequences of our action or inaction. They provoke and persuade us by engaging our imagination - to live without fear, bringing hope to others and acting with mercy.  To speak of sheep and goats reveals the impulses of our hearts, our priorities and divisions. 

To speak of sheep would evoke passages like those from the prophet Ezekiel: passages which depict God as the chief shepherd of the people: searching and seeking; rescuing and gathering; feeding and binding up; strengthening and judging. 

Anton Mauve: Shepherd and Sheep

Ezekiel’s words resonate with the human condition. We live in a world where peoples are scattered; where greed, ambition and self-service distorts the responsibility of leadership. His words names our hopes - for a place of rest and safety in our life together. He also names the ways in which we can become divided amongst ourselves - the weak are bullied, the strong exploit their position. 

This is the backdrop to Jesus’ parable: a narrative of God’s faithfulness - of a love reaching out towards us, bringing us home. And that love isn’t abstract. Nor is it the cry of ancient prophets alone. This love is revealed in one who is heir of David; the shoot from the stock of Jesse; the one on whom the Spirt of the Lord shall rest. He is Emmanuel.

Tree of Jesse with the Madonna and Child (Schrenberg Psalter)

Baden State Library, Germany

He taught the crowds on the mountainside and brought healing to those in sickness or distress.  Children have been blessed and the rich invited to store up heavenly treasure;  matters of divorce, taxation, hospitality and forgiveness have been debated.  

Now as we hear the parable of sheep and goats, our generation stands among the nations.  We face righteous judgement - standing before the loving gaze of one who is both shepherd and sheep; the king and the one in need.

This parable also sets before us a vision of God’s Kingdom which is marked by showing mercy, loving justice and walking with humility.  Jesus words hold leaders to account, but he also calls our attention to ordinary acts of feeding, clothing, welcoming, visiting and caring for others. 

Curiously, neither the sheep nor the goats know that in ministering - or failing to do so - that it was Jesus before their eyes. Perhaps our cartoonist would have given them expressions of surprise, shock, joy or embarrassment. Perhaps they too would have added the drama of hell fire versus heavenly bliss to spell out the seriousness of the situation. 

The Parable of the Good Shepherd Separating Sheep from the Goats

Sixth Century, Byzantine School 

The consequences of our action or inaction having enduring impact - on ourselves and others; we can strengthen or scatter, bind up or wound. In this parable, the eyes of our hearts are enlightened. We know the hope to which we are called; the inheritance of faith and love we are to share. 

That’s because in these moments, we see and are seen at a level of authentic human engagement; it’s compassion which frees the host and the guest. In going beyond the realm of duty, we see God. In the least of these, we see the Imago Dei, the image of God. 

That likeness is embodied and enacted - in face to face intimacy as we counsel the distressed, comfort the anxious and sit with the broken hearted. 

This likeness is performed in participation with others in networks which feed, cloth and visit; using gifts to support economic transformation, sustainability and fair trade; in supporting and praying for those who work in immigration centres, prisons and shelters for the homeless or victims of domestic abuse. 

The dignity of the Imago Dei is restored as lives and systems are transformed.

Learning to live like this when the future is uncertain is to endure upheaval with our hearts fixed on the victory of the shepherd-king, Emmanuel.  

The disciples learn a tough lesson. And so do we. For the one who is God with us, is the least of these. He is stripped of clothing and agency; dignity is crushed, his face smeared with blood and spittle. Hail, king of the Jews!  

Rembrandt: The Three Crosses

This king embraced the pain and suffering of humanity in his broken body; his outstretched arms reconciled us to God and each other. In him God’s power is at work - healing, forgiving, challenging, inspiring. As we hear in Ephesians, God’s power raised him from the dead. burst from the tomb, in the silence of the night, to renew our hope that life and death leads to risen life. 

Now the one who reigns above all rulers, authority and power,  pours out his Spirit on us that we might be united in a bond of peace. 

Christ King of Kings (Greece, sixteenth century)

And the most remarkable thing is this: we are members of his body. 

We are ‘the fullness of him who fills all in all’. Our agency, our bodies, our breath, our wealth: all this can express the fullness of God’s love in unremarkable yet significant moments. 

Here we are fed by that fullness. Here we are called.

Bread broken. Fragments shared. Hands outstretched. Fullness tasted.

A body given that we might be that body.

Then we depart in peace with assurance, hope and challenge of today's communion motet*:

Christ conquers,

Christ reigns,

Christ commands. Alleluia!

* A setting of Christus Vincit by James MacMillan

© Julie Gittoes 2017