Choose what is beneficial!

A sermon from Sunday Evensong - thinking about connections, common humanity and seeking the good of the other (via Joseph!). It begins with a description of the TV2 film "Connected" which can be seen here.  The texts were: Genesis 42:1-25; 1 Corinthians 10:1-24 

A camera pans across a waiting room.

A voice over says: These people have a lot to talk about.  They just don’t know it yet.

It’s a diverse group in terms of age, ethnicity, mobility and dress.

They walk into what looks like a sports hall; standing in a crowd.

The voice over continues: In a minute we’ll show them they have more in common than they think.

Thomas, says the conveyor of this ad hoc gathering, will you stand over there. And Aske.

She says: Thomas you live in a lovely house with his family.

That house had been Aske’s childhood home.

That’s right. They laugh.

Different families; playing games in the same garden.

Next, Mathilda is invited to stands opposite Aske.

They’ve faced each other before, on the rugby field aged twelve.

They give a hi-five, saying: Good game.

Inge’s an old woman. She steps forward, facing Mathilda.

When she was born 27 years ago, Inge’s was the first face Mathilda saw.

My midwife she says; they hug and cry.

Anna’s husband had a heart attack whilst out jogging.

The person who reacted quickly and saved his life comes and stands in front of her.

Knud looks at her. Thank you, whispers Anna.

Just below the surface, a total stranger can turn out to be someone you’re actually connected to.

The fireman, the online gamers, the dog owners.

Rana and Maher came to Denmark as refugees from Syria for years ago.

Dorrit and Jan stand next to them. They have a similar story from WWII.

And Rikke steps up: her great-grandfather took the risk of sailing all night to bring Jan to Sweden.

The voiceover kicks back in, saying. It’s easy to mind our own business; harder to mind the community.

This invitation to discover something in common, something that connects us comes from the commercial world. 

The Danish company TV2 with it’s tagline ‘all that we share’ has produced several of these mesmerising and humanising mini-films.

They’re pieces of cinematic art which invite us to see beneath the surface of things; to step outside our own boxes and to recognise the common humanity beneath the surface of things.

Genesis draws us into the space of common humanity fraught with memories of hurt and the reality of power.

Andrew Lloyd Webber told us how Joseph loved his coat of many colour; how handsome and smart he looked, like a walking work of art. So memorable was this musical of a dazzling coat of colours, that one ordinand I know sang the lyrics to herself when translating Genesis in a Hebrew exam. 

But there’s only so far you can go in improvising on the text with red and yellow and green and brown and scarlet and black and ochre and peach and ruby and olive and violet and fawn and lilac and gold and chocolate and mauve…

Lloyd Webber tells us of the dreams and the dreamer’s demise. Joseph sings of closed doors and a land of his own. We learn of Pharaoh being kept away with vision of fat and thin cows; and Joseph’s rise to be his right hand man.

This evening we come in at the chorus of ‘Those Canaan Days’: golden fields of corn are no more. Now the fields are dead and bare; No joie de vivre anywhere.

We’re a long way from the Joseph mega-mix number. 

The scene is full of recognition and what remains unrecognisable.  

Joseph recognises his brothers, but he treats them like strangers: in public there is a harshness to his tone, in private he weeps.

Before there can be a joyful reunion, there is a time of reflection.

Joseph perhaps recalling the arrogance of his youth as well as the wrong done to him.

The bothers have lived with guilt and remorse for twenty or more years.

They’ve seen their father’s heartbreak.

They’ve treated young Benjamin with more care than they did Jospeh.

Now in a desperate attempt to avoid starvation they bow before the one whose dreaming they’d despised.

They do not recognise the one sold into slavery; they don’t know of his imprisonment. 

They bow before a leader; an unrecognised brother. 

If TV2 were filming this perhaps they’d say: stand hear Joseph and you Reuben. 

Your brothers divided by envy and united by love of your kin.

Perhaps they’d hug and weep, laugh or high-five. 

Joseph can’t rebuild the trust that quickly. In shock and self-protection he sets his own test of honesty and truth. He will see his father and his brothers. They will live and not die.

The story does not end there: relief from famine becomes prosperity in a new land; prosperity becomes threat and enslavement. Slavery is turned to freedom; freedom means walking in the wilderness, trusting in promises yet to be fulfilled.

In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul reflects on the time our ancestors spent in the wildness: he notes the faithful presence of God in the parting of the sea and in the guidance of the cloud; in the provision of manna, quail and fresh water.

And yet, as we learn elsewhere, they grumbled and complained. They longed for the cucumbers and garlic of Egypt. 

The received commandments to love God and neighbour, and yet they fell into idolatry: the golden calf being no substitute for the holiness of a God who spoke in burning bush and the still small silence. 

Paul gives to the Corinthians a warning from history: complaint led to idolatry, idolatry led to immortality. Hearts turned away from God become hearts that turn in on themselves. 

Choose life, Paul is saying, that is at the heart of the commandment of love.

To choose life, can sometimes mean taking risks as Jacob and his sons did: seeking refuge in an unfamiliar land.

To chose love, can sometimes test our capacity to forgive, as Joseph moved from harshness to tears; living and loving beyond youthful vanity and sibling guilt.

It’s easy to mind our own business; harder to mind the community says TV2.

Paul reminds us that we are one in Christ, one in the bread we break and the cup we bless.

This is all that we share.

Paula Walker - Circles of Life

And in sharing, we choose life and love that moves beyond stereotypes; which challenges the corrosive prejudices of race, class, gender, age or sexuality.

We are to choose what is beneficial to others and what builds up. 

As Paul says, Do not seek your own advantage, but that of others.

© Julie Gittoes 2019

Love that heals

A short homily on Love Island, Jacob's wives, John the Baptist, Salome and the love of God which heals:  Genesis 29:1-20; Mark 6:7-29

A couple of years ago, the Church Times included a review of Love Island.

Somewhat surprising, you might think.

Love Island is on a TV shows I’ve never watched from Downton Abbey to Call the Midwife. 

But in the line of duty, the Rev’d Gillian Craig ventured to step into the realms of contemporary culture which I have long avoided.  

He wrote, tongue ever so slightly in cheek: Given St John’s focus on agape as the key Christian doctrine, I as­­sumed that Love Island  would be a documentary travelogue all about Patmos; but, having watched an episode, I am clear that the love in question is in fact eros. Or possibly porneia.

He goes on do describe the clutch of bronzed, barely clothed young people who, rather than been marooned in a luxury villa, are scrutinised, set up and paired off under the gaze of so called ‘reality TV’.

Craig notes that this set up is less about falling in love, but a series of relationships which as he puts it ‘function for the time being as an adequate substitute for that happy state’.

Since its relaunch the show has been compelling and guilty viewing for many; whilst also generating thousands of complaints to Ofcom. Love Island takes human experience and places it under a microscope; manipulating and exploiting people who find every facial expression turned into a meme; who are left with inadequate psychological support. 

From Chaucer to Shakespeare, the Brontës to the latest Zadie Smith level we know that relationships can be complicated; that hurts and desires linger; that love can provoke all sorts of insecurities, rivalries and jealousies. 

Our Scriptures themselves range from the unashamed desires of lovers expressed in the Song of Songs; to the more complex love triangle of David, Bathsheba and and Uriah fraught with betrayal, power and remorse. 

Today’s readings are examples of the ways in which God’s purposes continue to be woven through the messy stories of human loves; and how those human stories reveal something of what God desires for us.

In Genesis, we meet with Jacob again: after falling out with his brother Esau over placed and misplaced blessings, he is in exile. There he begins to establish himself by hard work and he falls in love.

We’re told in more subtle terms than a Love Island voice over, that ‘Leah’s eyes were lovely, and Rachel was graceful and beautiful’. It’s the younger woman Rachel that Jacob falls for; and he serves her father to earn his bride. Those years fly by, such is his love and devotion.

However, Jacob who hasn’t been immune to trickery and deception meets his match in Laban: and beyond the scope of this passage, we learn of how he substitutes his elder daughter for the younger, and how Jacob works a further 7 years for his true love; and six more for his own flocks.

After two decades, he has two wives, a growing family and because of his good husbandry, is now a man of considerable means.

Leah and Rachel - Kotovsky

And yet there is little joy. Leah the unloved wife with lovely eyes hopes to win her husbands affection with the birth of each son. Rachel the lovely and loved wife remains childless; with all the heartache that that involves. 

And yet, there is new hope for Jacob: as we’ll hear next week, it is in wrestling with an angel that his future is reshaped and aligned to God’s plan for reconciliation within family and blessing to all nations. 

And yet, there is hope in future generations: Leah’s son Levi establishes the line of priests; her son Judah the royal line. Rachel’s Joseph faces both the consequences of favouritism - in his arrogance, dreaming and slavery - and the fruit of calling in his gifts, eventual ability to save his kin.

In our second lesson, Mark draws us into the way in which the disciples are drawn into the work of preaching and healing and making whole. They are trusted with responsibility; and in anointing those they meet, they assure them of the nearness of God’s love.

The risks of travelling light and relying on the hospitality of strangers give a vulnerability as well as urgency to their witness. The nearness of God’s Kingdom feels a million miles away from the vulnerability and physicality of Love Island.

And then we get a sudden change of scene. We return to John the Baptist who has been languishing while Jesus begins his public ministry. His message about love of neighbour, compassion for the marginalised, challenging those in power, setting people free from fear serves as a trigger for Herod.

Herod suffers something of a flashback, haunted as he is by his part in John’s death. He was an insecure ruler, swayed by the whims and passions of those around him; his own whims and passions were denounced by John as being scandalous.

The dance of death had been depicted in various ways by those staging Stauss’s opera Salome: whether that’s using veils or borrowing Beyone’s dance moves. 

Allison Cook in Salome at London Coliseum. Photo: Tristram Kenton

It is Herod’s fear, instability and weakness that leads to a brutal end. An end more notorious and lurid than anything on Love Island.

Mark continues beyond Strauss’s bloody end: he takes us to the depths of a  love so amazing so divine. A love raised on a cross and lowered in a grave only to rise again. A love which in turn raises us up from guilt, despair and isolation;  a love which demands our all in lives of service and blessing. 

It is a love which enables us to live more fully with one another; a love that heals and does not hurt; a love that builds up and does not destroy. 

© Julie Gittoes 2019

Garden, sea and city

It was a delight to preach and preside at the Eucharist at Holy Trinity, Guildford yesterday. The texts were: Genesis 2:4b-9, 15-25, Revelation 4, Luke 8:22-25

Given the choice, where would you prefer to spend a day:

1. in a garden, your own or Wisely perhaps or;
2. by the sea, sitting in a deckchair or;
3. at the heart of the city?

As a rural lass, with an urban heart and a sister who loves the sea, like many of us I end up inhabiting all three. 

But lacking the green fingers of my parents, and the proximity to the coast, the buzz of the city draws me moth like to it’s light.

Gardens: places of tranquility and seasonal beauty; a haven of privacy and place for conviviality; a glimpse of paradise and a place of labour.

The sea: the expanse of sand or shingle ridges and the hypnotic roar of waves; a place of ice-cream and fish and chips; a haven of peace, subject to nature’s unpredictable force.

City: the energy of people filling streets and theatres, platforms, hostels and galleries; the vendors, commuters, performers and consumers; a sleepless place of restless inequality.

Today’s readings straddle all this: a garden blessed and tended; a sea raging that is calmed; a city dazzling consumed by praise. 

In the garden, by the sea and amidst the city, we are caught up in the story of God’s ways with the world and the destiny of humanity.

In Genesis we see a world which is teaming with life in all its diversity: it is good and pleasing, generative and sustainable.

We are earth creatures, formed of clay; we are God’s creatures, breathed into life.

We are placed in a world of mutual interdependence. We are in a profound way bound together with the glorious goodness of the created order. It is not a world of our own making. God’s gift is one of interdependence. We are blessed by delight and entrusted with responsibility.

In this delicate eco-system, we are confronted with the reality that it is not good for this human to be alone. 

A fresh creative act of God brings forth a helpmate.

It is not good or right for this man, this one formed of earth, this adam, to be alone.

Line engraving: God creating Eve out of Adam

Like each one of us, this solitary human needs a helpmate. 

We need companionship. The wellbeing of one is not fulfilled by dependence on God or creation alone. 

Out of our creaturely flesh our most intimate other is formed: one who opens up what it is to be human - in relation to God and the world.

In the first instance this is not about hierarchy, complementarity or marriage. Rather it points to a fundamental goodness in being together.  There is the possibility of work and creativity as custodians of the earth. As we face one another, we learn compassion, generosity and joy. 

As Walter Brueggemann puts it: ‘The place of the garden is for this covenanted human community of solidarity, trust and well being. They are one! That is, in covenant. The garden exists as a context for the human community.’

This vision of generative human companionship and shared endeavour, is gifted to us freely. God’s loving purpose for us is based in freedom, not coercion. But such freedom is fraught with risk. 

Goodness is disrupted. Faithful obedience becomes an assertion of self-will. Life and knowledge are within our grasp. The prohibition will be scrutinised and misquoted and we seize the fruit of that tree for ourselves. 

And, as Genesis will tell it in the following scene, freedom, trust and calling are exchanged for autonomy, oppression and fragmentation

We know all too well the pain of what happens when we selfishly take the mysteries of life and knowledge into our own hands apart from God: freedom to act becomes the capacity to control. 

We become fearful and mistrusting; our hearts turn inwards, away from the other; we are ashamed of our naked vulnerability and dependence. 

The tranquility of the garden paradise breaks; we find ourselves on stormy seas.

Our struggle to know how to live well with one another is met by the commandments to love God and neighbour as ourself.

Our struggle with how to live wisely in the world is bet by the prophets cry for justice and mercy.

Our struggle to know how to live is ultimately met with a new act of solidarity. By God refusing to refuse love; by God dwelling with us in Christ Jesus. 

Jesus understands our anxieties and fears; he knows our tendency to selfishness and self-protection; he knows our capacity to wound and be wounded; and also knows our desire to heal and be healed.

Jesus stepped into the boat: and he slept. As flesh of our flesh, he gives into his physical need for rest; as Word made flesh, he abides in trusting rest with God.

Jesus with his disciples on the see of Galilee

The storm arises: disruptive and ferocious. It stirs the chaos from the deep. It surges and threatens to overwhelm. It has mastery over the boat and over seasoned sailors.

And amidst the terror and looming disaster, Jesus sleeps.

The storm does not disturb him; but wakes to our cries.

And with a word of rebuke the Word brings calm: wind and waves are subdued. This sign of mastery over creation and is also a renewed breathing into us of God’s life.

Who then is this?

Here is perfect love casting out fear. 

Here God’s Word addresses us in the midst of the storm.

In the midst of those things which fill us with dread, heartache and trembling... God is. 

God is with us in the betrayals and losses; the anxiety and grief; in the things which break us down and when faith wavers.

God. is. with. us.

Loving us. 

The God who created us that we might be one, comes to us in flesh and blood. His body heals and teaches; is touched and anointed; is spat at and wept over; breaks bread and is broken for us.

And we God’s creatures are made one as we share in fragments of bread. Here we are moved beyond the ties of biological kinship and commitment of flesh and blood. Genesis speaks of being one and here, though we are many we are one body.

Here we are called by name and nourished with the bread of heaven: the covenant of love is renewed. 

Here we at this Eucharist we are led through stormy seas from creation to new creation. From the beauty and labour of our earthly garden, we are given a glimpse of a heavenly city. 

A city where, in the words of John Donne, there is no darkness nor dazzling but one equal light; no noise nor silence, but one equal music;  no fears nor hopes, but one equal possession; no ends nor beginnings, but one equal eternity.

Here and now we unite our voices with the saints and angels singing ‘holy, holy, holy; Lord God almighty; who was and is and is to come.

As we praise our creator God, we are united with Christ in one body. But what we say and sing with our lips we are to live out in our lives: in the urban heart of Guildford and in our gardens; amidst personal storms and at work or school.

In a world of chaos, pain and noise, in the power of the Spirit, may we be one as a people whose hearts are turned outwards to the other. 

Breath by breath may we be compassionate, generous and peaceable companions on stormy seas.

Gesture by gesture, may we be creative and just in our commitment to the earth’s sustainability.

Word by word, may we walk in the light of Christ, seeking the equity and fearlessness of a heavenly city. 

© Julie Gittoes 2019