Radical inclusion

A sermon peached at the parish eucharists. The texts were: Isaiah 9:1-4, 1 Corinthians 1:10-18 and Matthew 4:12-23

It’s more than fifty years since The Kinks sang ‘Dedicated Follower of Fashion’.  In it they mock the superficial dandy keeping up with the latest designers and their daring styles. 

Ray Davies wrote the song as a critique of a slavish conformity that followed the latest trends at the expense of individual identity. 

It seems that far from being reluctant to follow anyone or anything, human beings are capable of a surprising immediacy in succumbing to external influences.

From the newspaper columnist we read and the teams we support through to adopting new technologies, we are in many ways instinctive ‘followers’. 

Social media highlights that in many ways: we choose who to follow or follow back; we form ‘our tribe’; algorithms and influencers drawing us echo chambers or fan bases.

There’s even a meme of Jesus sitting next to a young man, saying: ‘No, I’m not talking about Twitter. I literally want you to follow me’. 

It’s that kind of immediacy that today’s gospel draws us into: it’s not without cost, but it is also transformative. 

John himself has been arrested. His work as forerunner is done. He has prepared the way for Jesus; he has pointed others him.

As we move from a time of preparation to one of fulfilment, Jesus takes up John’s message: ‘Repent for the kingdom of heaven has come near’. 

This is an invitation to follow: to turn our attention to God, to notice the nearness of God’s love in flesh and blood.

As a child Jesus been honoured by the magi: those seeking wisdom from far flung lands.

As a child, he fled with Mary and Joseph to the safety of the land of Egypt.

As an adult, Jesus raises up our humanity in being baptised in the Jordan.

As an adult, he now withdraws to Galilee: in the face of threat, he refuses to engage in retaliation and violence.

He goes to Galilee, to the very heart of the land of Israel.

He goes to particular places; places like Zebulun and Naphtali which were once more under imperial control.

He goes beyond the Jordan to the Galilee of the nations, as Isaiah calls it.

In these particular places, something expansive and liberating breaks in.

In the face of gloom and anguish and the burdens of oppression, there will be rejoicing.

Light breaks into the darkness, it shines for all peoples.

Jesus returns to this particular place of Galilee; he goes with a message of hope. 

Repent, he says: inviting human hearts to turn to love.

The kingdom is near, he says: in him, that love divine draws near to us in human breath and word; gesture and touch.

Jesus comes to Peter and Andrew; to James and John. 

He comes to them, and to us, and calls them.

He takes the initiative and says ‘follow me’.

It is an invitation to walk with him.

They drop everything. They follow. Immediately.

This call is unexpected. It disrupts the ordinary rhythm of daily life.

Those first followers are called from family and from work; from the familiarity of all that sustains them.

This new commitment takes precedence over all other relationships and obligations. 

But what takes precede is love. 

They are called to follow; to walk.

As they do so, they become aware of the needs of others ; of their desires, fears and motivations. 

They learn to collaborate, to set aside personal ambition; they face the call to be courageous in responding to the powerful and the vulnerable. 

They learn this from one they follow: the one who breaks the rod of the oppressor; the one who embodies God’s reign of justice and of peace.

One commentator suggests that as these fishermen move from service of economy and empire  they are being invited to take up ‘God’s great and gracious drag net which takes in all sorts and conditions of people.’

Therefore all sorts and conditions of people are invited to share in good news: this news is radically inclusive; lived out in diverse households; expressed in kinship across race and class, age and sexuality. 

This news is radically inclusive in bringing transforming love to places of anguish and gloom; it is lived out as we get our hands dirty in involvement in the stuff of this world; it is expressed in the justice we seek and how we use our own social or economic capital.

This news is radically inclusive, and yet, as Paul is all too aware, the church can be a divided body; falling into argument rather than agreement. 

Paul cuts to the chase: we should be united in the same mind and purpose.

That purpose is to bring hope, forgiveness and liberation. 

We live out that purpose in the power of God, seen in the utter vulnerability of the cross.

What may look like foolishness is a radical statement that there is no longer any place where God’s love is not: it reaches to the depths of despair and raises us to the highest joy; it defeats death and brings new life.

We who break bread together are called to be of the same mind; we receive the blessing of a love that passes all understanding are called to be united in one purpose.

Jesus says, repent, turn your hearts to love.

He says, the kingdom of justice and compassion has come near.

This one who is God with us, calls us to follow, to walk, to live and breath this love.

Anoint us with your Spirit that we may share the good news of freedom; may our lives illumined by word and sacrament, shine the radiance of love.

© Julie Gittoes 2020

Blinded by your grace

At Sermon preached at St Mary's and Christ Church in the context of the Eucharist. The night before, I had seen Stomzy perform at Glastonbury - along with many others watching and commentating on social media.  

Along with the pyrotechnics of the set design, there were serious points being made: naming the fear and challenging gang violence in wearing a stab-proof vest emblazoned with the union flag; sampling David Lammy’s speech about race and the criminal justice system; the gospel choir, the grainy street videos; the ballet sequence. Not only was it echoing his own commitment to sponsorship of black students and dancers, but he was challenging us about power and visibility. 

Then he had Glasto singing "Blinded by your grace"....

The readings were 1 Kings 19:15-16, 19-21; Galatians 5:1, 13-25; Luke 9:51-62 which all resonate with moments of decision and following Jesus.

On Friday night, Stomzy became the first black British artist to headline on Glastonbury’s famous Pyramid Stage.

Beyond the controversy and expletives, his performance deconstructed binaries and asking who is powerful and powerless; who is invisible or treated differently.

Then he says: “Glasto, we’re gonna go to church right now”.

One of the UK’s biggest grime artists isn’t afraid to share his faith.

At a festival he says: “Gonna give God all the glory right now”.

And he does so by singing “Blinded by your grace”: a song about the goodness of God meeting the brokenness of our hearts, our lives, our world.

Lord, I’ve been broken, 

Although I’m not worthy, 

You fixed me, I’m blinded by your grace,

You came and saved me.

Brokenness met with grace.

Unworthiness met with healing.

God comes to be with us.

God saves us.

The lyrics continue: But oh my God what a God I serve.

This isn’t a kinship of blood or birth: we are God’s children.

Stormzy’s playlist isn’t without contradictions. His music reflects on his experience of life - both good and bad. Jesus has had an impact on him and as his popularity has moved him from fringe to mainstream, he is exploring that journey.

Blinded by grace: sung with 200,000 people in a field; sung on one of the world’s biggest stages.

As one Christian youth worker tweeted (@stalbansdyo): his music is ‘a significant liturgy for young people in the nation - a modern psalmody of hopes and fears’. 

Today’s readings explore the journey of faith and changed lives.  It’s not straightforward - the themes of rejection, decision, fruitfulness and freedom run through them.

Jesus sets his face towards Jerusalem. The road is tough; the shadow of the cross looms.

He faces rejection and not for the first time.

In his home town of Nazareth, some asked how could this local lad be God’s Messiah? So he could do no deed of power there, and he left.

For a Jew to take the direct to Jerusalem through Samaria could be dangerous. There was suspicion and mistrust; disagreements about the Temple, different views of the Messiah. 

They reject a truth didn’t chime with their concerns.

James and John have been haggling about who was the greatest. Their response to rejection highlights that the disciples haven’t clocked it. 

To call down fire from heaven would use divine power to destroy rather that to heal.

Jesus rebukes: he rejects violence in the face of rejection; he rejects hostility in the face of inhospitality. 

Love more deeply.

Love God. Love neighbour as yourself. Love enemy.

Jesus is love divine; loving us.

Love that comes and saves.

Love raised on the cross; raised from the tomb.

Love expanded and setting us free.

Love demands our all.

Our journey of discipleship is demanding: it demands that we make choices about our priorities and relationships; how we use our influence and our time. 

Jesus travels with the twelve; with men and women from Galilee. As he passes through villages, more tag along: the curious, the adventurous, and those wanting to know more.

One is starstruck, declaring with an eager devotion: ‘I will follow you wherever you go.’

Jesus walks the way of self-giving love. 

His followers we’re to adopt that same pattern: to walk in the world, step by step; walking with love. Being with the brokenhearted and overjoyed; the rejected, rejecting and the peacemakers. 

‘Follow me’, says Jesus.

Someone amongst the band of travellers falls under his gaze.

‘First let me go and bury my father.’ 

A reasonable response to an immediate need or long term responsibility.

We hesitate too. Before saying “yes” to what God is calling us to our mind flits to the domestic concerns, our loyalties, loves and life.

Jesus is reverses all that.

First, he says, follow me.

First. Follow.

Then those other concerns will be reshaped; seen differently; infused with more grace and love and life.

Time is short. Life is short.

The Kingdom is near. 

Our hearts, our lives, our city, our world  cry out urgently: I’ve been broken.

We our to proclaim: there is healing, there is grace.

But oh my God what a God we serve.

God comes. God saves. In Christ Jesus, our Lord.

Jesus still says: ‘Follow me’.

Again, a voice replies. ‘I will follow you, Lord’. The heart is there; the instinct is right.

But, they say; but we say: ‘let me first say farewell to those at my home.’ 

When Elisha is anointed by Elijah, he has time to kiss his family good bye. He slaughters his livestock so that he can prepare a feast; he offers a sacrifice of thanksgiving.

Jesus is being more forceful.

There can be no delay: follow.

God’s love runs deeper than our ties of biological kinship. 

In following, we learn that such love embraces stranger and neighbour in need.

In following, love is stirred up in us as we see the other differently.

Today, as Jesus voice says follow, that love is kindled in us.

Paul reminds the Galatians that this call to follow is a calling to freedom.

This freedom isn’t an invitation to self-indulgence or self-promotion; it’s not about self-satisfaction or even self-reliance.

Freedom to pursue our own desires leads to division in relationships and causes harm to ourselves.

This freedom is an invitation to love others and to seek their welfare. 

We might not play to 200,000 young people; but we all have a place - a stage - with others where we can name brokenness and bring grace.

We gather as a people with gifts and callings: some visible and put into practice; some niggling away at us, coming to potential.  

Teachers, leaders and people of prayer; people with pastoral hearts and creative spirits; there are musicians, and people gifted at welcome and service.

We are invited to follow - to lay aside our fears, our ‘but firsts’. 

The Spirit is in this place: guiding, inspiring, provoking and setting us free: free to do new things; or to do the old things with renewed love.

Today, we are invited to participate ever more deeply in love poured out on the cross; and to embrace the new life bursting from the tomb.

Each Eucharist reminds us that the vocation of our flesh is to embody love.

And by the power of the Spirt at work in us, breath by breath, to see love bring forth fruit of kindness, generosity and peace.

The Spirit shapes our attitudes bit by bit, enabling us to be self-controlled and patient.

Lord, I’ve been broken, 

Although I’m not worthy, 

You fixed me, 

The Spirit deepens our capacity to be faithful and loving.

I’m blinded by your grace,

You came and saved me.

This is the source of the Spirit’s gift of joy.

I’m blinded by your grace,

You came and saved me.

© Julie Gittoes 2019

Here we are: send us!

The text of a sermon preached at the Cathedral Eucharist on 10 February. I was struck by the way in which Jesus seeks Peter's help; by the experienced fisherman seeing empty nets bursting full in inauspicious circumstances; by the glimpse of holiness in boat. Kenneth Bailey's work on seeking Jesus through middle eastern eyes is so evocative but the text also opened up a response to more contemporary concern for evangelism and what it means for us to tell the story of God's transforming love. The texts Isaiah 6:1-8; I Corinthians 15:1-11; Luke 5:1-11

Do you remember J. R. Hartley?

He is a fictional character, an elderly gentleman. It’s over 30 years since he captured our cultural imagination in an iconic advert for Yellow Pages.

We encountered him looking for a copy Fly Fishing by J. R. Hartley.  He goes into one second-hand bookshop after another, asking the same question and receiving the same answer. It’s no where to be found.

He gets home. His daughter hands him the Yellow Pages. From the comfort of his arm chair, he continues his search by ringing around. Eventually he finds a shop which has a copy. The last words we hear are some of the most famous in advertising history: 

‘My name? Oh, yes, it’s J.R.Hartley.’

Fly Fishing still features in the top ten ads of all time alongside John Lewis, Levis and Coca Cola. A new generation of marketing experts and advertising creatives, are trying to reinvent or update the impact of the ad using the digital tools at their disposal.

For although Mr Hartley comes from a different age, that basic premise of searching for something remains the same. Instead of flicking through a hard copy of Yellow Pages, we rely on apps, search engines and social networks to track down a particular book, to find a gift or to replace a treasured item.

What are you looking for today?

What is it that we seek?

Some of what we search out reflects basic human need for stability: a living-wage, satisfying work, a regular pension, a place to call home, food and warmth. But our material needs are woven together with our quest for relationship and meaningful intimacy; for emotional support, for people to care about us; for meaning, value, dignity and purpose.

What are you looking for today?

It’s quite possible that we don’t quite know what it is that we seek; and sometimes we don’t realise what it is until we discover it in the unexpected. 

Peter’s experience as recounted by Luke is a bit like that: it brings to the surface all sorts of practical needs and reveals a deeper purpose.

Luke sets the scene: it isn’t the patience and tranquility of a riverbank, which might be at the heart of Fly Fishing. Rather we are drawn to a busy and crowded lakeside. There’s a sense of expectation - people want to listen to Jesus, to hear the word of God. But there’s also a sense of tiredness and frustration - Peter and his colleagues are exhausted after a fruitless night’s work and they want to get on with cleaning and mending nets. 

Jesus looks to Peter for help. He needs his boat to use as a makeshift platform from which to teach; but he also needs his particular skill as an oarsman to manoeuvre the boat and prevent it from drifting too far from shore. 

It’s from this place of confidence within his own world of work that Peter was able to listen to Jesus; in the familiarity and intimacy of his own boat he is caught up in a life-transforming encounter. 

Having taught the crowds, Jesus doesn’t ask Peter to row the boat back to the shore. Instead he tells him to go into the deep water and let down the nets. Given that fish hide rather than feed during the day, this sounded preposterous.  It’s quite possible that, having worked all night, Peter had a few choice words to say about that request. 

Kenneth Bailey, a scholar who invites us to see the Gospels through middle-eastern eyes puts it like this: ‘The very idea that a landlubber from the highlands of Nazareth, who has never wet a line should presume to tell a seasoned fishing captain what to do is preposterous… the order to launch into the deeps in broad daylight is ridiculous!’

Peter's Catch of Fish - Eric de Saussure

Yet, even in his grumpy exhaustion, Peter sets aside his professional opinion and obeys. The result is astonishing. The scale of the catch is indeed miraculous. It is economically lucrative too. All that Peter looks for as a fisherman is fulfilled. As Bailey puts it: ‘This net-tearing, boat-swamping catch can greatly enrich him and his team. At last he has hit the jackpot!’.

Yet, Peter doesn’t look at Jesus as a potential business partner: he responds at a deeper level. There is something here of more value than material gain, commercial success and profit margins.

Peter falls to his knees.

Having addressed his teacher with bravado, he now addresses his Lord with humility.

In the confined space of the boat, with the nets and fish, with the familiar noise and smells, Peter senses that he is in the presence of holiness. 

It is a far cry from the splendour and majesty of the Temple. The whole earth is indeed full of God’s glory; glory revealed in Jesus Christ. 

The Miracle of a Large Catch of Fish

Peter’s works echo those of Isaiah as he acknowledges his unworthiness. He is not only seeing Jesus as who he really is, but he is also being seen. As Jeffrey John puts it: ‘Peter’s words… are the authentic response of someone feeling himself, unbearably, exposed to the glare of this vast, unconditional love. He can’t bear it, he wants to run and hid; yet having known it, he could never let it go. He will give up everything to follow it’.

Jesus reaches out to Peter and to James and John too.  Amazement and fear become the place of invitation into a new partnership; his skills are to be deployed in a new venture.  Jesus takes them from the material world of catching fish to the world of catching people; of drawing them to the new and abundant life found in Jesus.

This is the heart of the good news proclaimed to us and received by us: that in his death and resurrection, Jesus Christ defeats the power sin and death and sets us free to be more fully who we are. 

As Paul reminds us, we come to know this good news because someone passed it on to us: by telling us the story or caring for us; by listening to our fears and hopes; by the way they embodied the attractiveness of God’s love in their own lives; by the way they sought forgiveness and justice, compassion and healing.

This is the very heart of evangelism: to know and show and tell of God’s love. This happens in the middle of our lives - in the places which are as familiar to us as Peter’s boat was to him; in lecture halls and offices, in hospital waiting rooms and our own homes.

St Peter - witnessing to the crowds

Here in broken bread and outpoured wine, the good news of God’s transforming love is retold. In the power of the Spirit we are sent out to tell others of what we’ve known and to see lives transformed.

To be a witness is to understand what others are looking for - hope, comfort or challenge; support, dignity or freedom. It is to respond to that search with a love that turns empty nets into abundant life.

To be an evangelist is tell of what we have experience of God’s love; and each of us is sent in the power of the Spirit to live lives and speak words which tell of that goodness. 

Whom shall I send?

Here we are; send us.

Let us pray: Lord Jesus Christ, you stretched out your arms of love on the hard wood of the cross, that all might come within reach of your saving embrace. So clothe us in your spirit, that we reach gin forth our hands in love, may bring those who do not know you to the knowledge and love of you, for your own love and mercy’s sake. Amen. 

© Julie Gittoes 2019