A is for apple

Reflections from Sunday 21 June - Trinity 2 - the texts were: Jeremiah 20: 7-13 and Matthew 10: 24-39. Thinking about the connotations of 'A is for Apple' held in Eve's hand and ours, and in the hand of Mary and Jesus reaches out to take it; and reflecting to on how we employ our freedom. 

Reflection One 

Apple: A is for apple, so goes the alphabet rhyme. Or perhaps the old wives tale: an apple a day keeps the doctor away.  Motherhood and apple pie, something good and important. 

Harvested and baked under crumble with lashings of custard; pressed into sweetness for refreshing juice; or fermented a while longer for the stronger cider.

A is for apple. It's appealing, enticing.  

Enticing to the point of seduction; to the point of temptation. 

Eve was here - Chris Gollon

Eve. Was. Here.

Eve took.

It looked so good. So healthy. So enticing. 

But this apple wasn’t pressed into sweetness; it had a bitter taste. 

A is for apple. Our tendency to take what we desire. Our human capacity to consume.

For freedom is enticing; even though we risk turning away from God and others, getting caught up in ‘stuff’. 

In the words of opening hymn we seek forgiveness for our foolish ways; asking God to breath through the heats of our desire. 

Image: unknown

We are not immune from it. The MacBook through which I see you; the iPhone from which I’m reading carries the mark of that bitten apple. It’s the signifier for our quest for knowledge; it marks out a brand. 

Map [Matthew Cussick]: As human beings we face countless decisions; and find ourselves pulled in multiple directions; seeking meaning, knowledge, purpose and identity. 

Chasing the Dragon - Matthew Cusick

It can feel conflictual: not so much a cross roads but a spaghetti junction of decisions and desires; fears and freedoms. 

And as we think about what we stand up for and what we call out, those desires and fears and freedoms come under pressure. We might be enticed to do the thing that’s most expedient or which makes life easier.

It can be tempting to ask: what does this do for my professional  reputation or for my popularity? Who will I offend or what will it cost?

These are the kind of questions facing Jeremiah. 

Jeremiah [San Francisco, Grace Cathedral]

We encounter him today reflecting on God’s call to be a prophet - to be one who called people back to God’s ways of love. As a prophet he exhorted God’s people to be faithful to the commandments and to make love visible in public through the pursuit of justice.

The language he uses is of being enticed and empowered by God’s call. It was compelling and he could do no other than say ‘yes’ to this work, this life of costly service.

In the words in the stained glass window from Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, he employed his freedom. He employees his freedom to serve God in a particular way. 

But it was a challenging task.  It made him a laughing stock. It was not popular. 

He was mocked for calling out the violence done through failure to do what was just, merciful and compassionate. 

He was mocked for naming the destruction caused by the refusal to obey the  commandment to love.

He spoke, cried out and shouted. 

And the very thing he loved - the word and life and love of God - became a source of derision. 

It felt as if this calling had cost him everything: influence, friends, status and reputation.

He’d employed his freedom. 

So when he’s temped to give up, the original burning conviction wells up within him. He cannot to anything else but speak up for the needed, abused and marginalised. 

And yet, when enticed by those who are watching for him to stumble, he remains steadfast.  However wearied he is, he won’t abandon this long labour of seeking what is right.

He has employed his freedom to God’s cause.

Unity of Praise - Jackie O Kelley  

Jeremiah’s moment of crisis, his grappling with the cost of his work, reveals to us something that it as the heart of today’s discomforting gospel.

It is an illusion to think that seeking God’s ways of peace means a comfortable life. 

We have each been called by name; we have employed our freedom to God’s ways.  And like Jeremiah there are times when we might waver or feel enticed to seek an easier path.

But Jeremiah reminds us, as long as the fight for what is just continues, we will somehow find peace in that struggle.

It’s not comfortable or painless: but on Jeremiah’s lips those cries for what is just turn to praise. For God will deliver the lives of the exploited and overlooked, the discriminated against and the marginalised. 

We’ve heard that song of praise: of laudamus the - we praise, bless, adore and glorify the Lord our God; and now we hear another song, which reminds us that God is among us.

God is with the broken and the weak and in the spaces in between.

Reflection Two

Staithes Rooftops - Terry Chipp

In this curious and challenge set of teaching, takes us to the heart of how we are to employ our freedom: not in competition with others for the their sake. 

Jesus takes what is whispered and invites us to share it from the roof tops. There is no zero sum game in God’s economy; we do not live out of scarcity of love but out of an abundance that calls us to seek justice.

Do we hear God’s voice cry out? Are we listening?  Do we come together with the ones without a voice, the forgotten and ignored?

In this, we are one flesh. Whatever our gender, class, race, sexuality, wealth, age or health.

We live in Christ. We are one flesh. And by the power of the Spirit, we are to listen.

To listen to what entices us, and to ask, is this the way of God?

To listen to what entices us, and ask if it names the dignity and equality of others.

To listen to what entices us, and to seek what it is a blessing for all.

We all have a share in these tasks: and for some of us, because of the stories we’ve been told, it’s a time to listen; for some of us, because of the stories we’ve been told, it’s a time to be heard.

Sparrow Bonnie Murray

That process of speaking and being heard takes time. It doesn’t just happen in the public square but in our one to one relationships. 

Jesus moves us from the public realm of our rooftops; to the intrinsic value of every human life. He invites us to look upon a sparrow. To see the thing that is small and seemingly insignificant; and to know that God’s tender care for even the tiniest thing extends also to us. 

Just as the sparrow is precious, so are we: God knows the hairs of our head, the thoughts of our hearts, our cries and our songs. Dare we extend that loving regard to each other - seeing each other as who we are - with our burdens and privileges, our gifts and our needs?

And seeing each other dare we employ our freedom as members of one body, to stand against all the harmful longings of the flesh that entice us - of power used for self. 

Dare we do this, together, hearing our stories: hearing the hope and challenge, the cries and dreams.  For in this we find our peace.

Wallsily Kandinsky - Composition VII

The language of peace that Jesus uses is full of conflict and division; it really challenges us about tour priorities. 

This image by Kandinsky is full of bold lines, and vibrant colours; it’s full of overlapping forms and shapes. We may not see it immediately, but in it are the biblical themes of the apple tasted in Eden - the moment our longings for power and knowledge enticed. It speaks of judgement - and how we use our freedom; but it also speak of resurrection and the gift of new life. 

Jesus speaks of this life that comes when we lose it for his sake, and the sake of God’s kingdom of justice and righteousness. The conflict of which he speaks is not destructive but creative. It is not bent towards destruction, but liberation.

Writing in her book Seeking God, Esther de Wall writes of the stability we find in God’s love for us; it means that we don’t run from where battles are being fought, but that rather we have to stand still where the real issues have to be face.

This way of being is based on Gospel paradox of losing life and finding it.

How do we employ our freedom - for self fulfilment or to the struggle of liberation for all?

Martin Luther King -  Huffington Post

Perhaps this is evoked most powerfully - and in a way which frames the question in a practical way - by Martin Luther King. He said:  Cowardice asks the question, ‘is it safe?’ Expediency asks the question, ‘is it politic?’ Vanity asks the question, ‘is it popular?’ But conscience asks the question, ‘is it right?’ And there comes a time when one must a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but one must take it because one’s conscience tell one that it is right.

We are called to do what is right. To listen carefully and to be willing to change; to cry out in the expectation that we will be heard; to sing a song that brings joy and hope.

Crucifixion - Lindiwe Mvemve

We all have a role in this Kingdom of change:  

Are you a caregiver: nurture and nourish people around me via creation and sustaining community of care, joy and connection.

Or perhaps your freedom is employed in being a disrupter: taking uncomfortable or risky actions to shake up the status quo, raise awareness and build power.

Do you like to teach and guide - using gifts of discernment and wisdom?

Are you called to the work of telling stories - sharing experience and histories in words and art in order to shape a community moving forward together?

Or are you visionary - setting out possibilities, hopes and dreams, reminding us of our direction?

Are you someone who helps us weave lives together? Or someone gifted in tending to the traumas of oppression and isolation?

We need all these gifts - deploying our individual freedoms for the sake of God’s call to love, justice and mercy.

Madonna and child - Chris Gollon

And we do it not in our own strength. But because God so loved the world. So loved the world that God’s very self dwelt among us in flesh of our flesh. Taking the apple. 

The apple in our hand reflects our tendency to mess things up; the apple in the hand of Mary, as Jesus reaches out to take it, reflects God’s capacity to love and forgive.

Let us pray:

Lord, you have taught us that all our doings without love are nothing worth:

send your Holy Spirit and pour into our hearts that most excellent gift of love,
the true bond of peace and of all virtues,
without which whoever lives is counted dead before you.
Grant this for your only Son Jesus Christ's sake,
who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.

©  Julie Gittoes 2020

Normal People

A sermon preached at Guildford Cathedral - Evensong 27 January 2019 which ended up being about love, normal people and discerning vocation. I was struck by the image of the cloud in relation to God's presence - settling and moving on, as we settle and move on. Holding on to that alongside Paul's instruction to lead the life assigned to us...  The texts were Numbers 9: 15-23 and 1 Corinthians 7:17-24

Sally Rooney’s second novel, Normal People has generated a buzz of critical acclaim - long-listed for the Man Booker Prize and winner of the Costa Novel Award. Its green cover is ubiquitous: piled high in Waterstones; clutched in the hands of a commuter dashing through Waterloo.

Cover image and review 'The London Magazine'

Normal People: it’s a deceptively simple tale; and perhaps one which is universally recognisable. Rooney draws us into an intricate web of intimacy and regret, affluence and poverty, quarrels and forgiveness. She does so by tracing the lives of Marianne and Connell from a small town in rural Ireland to their student life in Dublin.

They are “normal people”: seemingly mismatched when judged by their popularity and class, yet bound together by attraction, a meeting of minds as well as bodies. However much they understand and misunderstand themselves and each other, there is protection, vulnerability and growing self-worth.

She pours hot water on the coffee;  white light floods the room as she draws the curtain.

The day begins before work begins. She takes a shower. 

All perfectly normal.

She dries her hair with a towel; as he sits up in bed, closing the laptop down.

They respond to the email he’s received: practicalities, questions, indecision.

Normal life.

And Connell says:  I wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t for you.

In the words and silence of these characters, Rooney gives us a more than a glimmer of hope.

And Marianne thinks: she’s made a new life possible, and she can always feel good about that.

In the words and silence of a final scene, Rooney gives us a glimpse of a love that gives dignity and purpose.

It’s not a saccharine cliché of ‘happy ever after’. That wouldn’t do justice to the struggle with the darkness of grief and violence or the shadowy fear of being lonely and unlovable.

Instead, Rooney echoes something more universal: how one person can shape another; how our lives can be indelibly marked by that love; how goodness is a gift of patient care and acceptance; how life is given and chosen.

Those universal concerns - the longings of normal people - are threads running through our scriptures.  Threads which express our hopes, fears and regrets as we try to make sense of ourselves and our world; threads of silence and speech, stories of lament and praise which seek not only to understand our innermost hearts, but also the God who created us.

In our scriptures, those threads are woven together with the deep desire of God to communicate something of Godself to us.  In words spoken on the holy ground near a burning bush and in the awesome silence after the earthquake, God is present. 

Burning Bush - Clare Harmon

In the giving of commandments to love, we are invited to choose life; in their repetition and enactment, community is formed. In prophetic rebuke, we are called back to love mercy, do justly and to walk humbly with God. In the song of the psalmist, we are reassured that our help does indeed come from God.  This God gives life; and is with us.

In Numbers, the sometimes imperceptible reality of God’s presence is made tangible. 

The assurance of God’s nearness and faithfulness is made visible at a time of hardship.

The joyous miracle of liberation from Egypt had now turned to the laborious journey to a new homeland.  Nomadic life in the desert was challenging; trust in God’s promises wavered. 

In Chapter 11, we hear people reminisce about the food they used to eat in Egypt: the fish and cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, onions and garlic. Freedom had dinted the memory of slavery, their earthly longings undermined their gratitude for manna from heaven.

Despite all this,  the Tent at the centre of the camp marks God’s presence with them always and the cloud serves as a sign of when to rest and when to walk. 

When the cloud settles, they are to settle: making camp, lighting a fire, telling stories, mending clothes, weening infants, tending the sick, replenishing resources.

When the cloud lifts, they are to lift their feet: moving onwards, navigating their way through the wilderness, sharing responsibilities, seeking out intelligence about the land ahead, leading a new generation home.

The one who had called them out of Egypt remained faithful. They learnt hard lessons about how to live together - facing disputes, jealousy and fatigue.  In these human struggles, God was ever present; they learnt to discern together God’s ways for them. 

Our lives might not be marked by a visible cloud: and yet perhaps we do sense when God is calling us to take our rest; to give our energies to one thing or another;  to commit ourselves to a particular place or task.  

Cultivating habits of attentiveness to God - in prayer, in scripture or in conversations with trusted companions along the way - helps us to discern when God is calling us on to a new thing. It might be a niggle of being unsettled or a desire to use gifts in a different context; it might be that we are entering a new season of life, when the availability of time or energy creates a new opportunity. 

In both cases, dare we say ‘yes’: when God is calling us to settle, rest and serve there; when God is calling us to a new thing, take a tentative step.

This is at the heart of what the Church means by vocation - or calling. Listening deeply to one another and to God; discerning together the ways in which the Spirit might be challenging, encouraging, equipping or inspiring us to do a new thing. Neither staying or going are without risk or cost; but both are rooted in the love of God who says ‘choose life’.

For Paul, writing to Christians in the vibrant cosmopolitan city of Corinth, was perhaps all too aware of the proliferation of ‘choice’. Choices about marriage or singleness, circumcision or uncircumcision; choices about the place of women and slaves; choices about who to include or exclude; and even choices about which spiritual gifts were most valuable.

His words are both challenging and liberating: let each of you lead the life that the Lord has assigned, to which God called you.

He cuts through the debates which preoccupy us, the Corinthians and even Rooney’s ‘normal people’. Status, race intellect, gender, wealth, sexuality and abilities make no difference. We are to live integrated lives - as individuals and within community; to live life in response to the love of God which changes us.

Such freedom has been bought at great price; and reshapes every aspect of our social life. Now we are joined together in Christ’s body; and with the power of the Holy Spirit at work in us we are to honour others. 

Such honour demands trust in the face of vulnerability; humility in the exercise of authority; generosity in hospitality; faithfulness in relationships; compassion in response to the needs of others; wisdom in using our resources; joy in the midst of normal people. 

Now, I hear Marianne’s words differently. I hear them not about her human love - but of God’s love made human in Christ. 

Love that relieves the pain of loneliness;  which brings goodness like a gift.

Love which means we no longer see ourselves us unworthy; which opens up life.

Love that changes us; and changes each other.

© Julie Gittoes 2019

Mothering: joy and sorrow

Preaching on Mothering Sunday is always a challenge: it's an opportunity to show love an appreciation to our own mothers but it's become more complicated than that. There's commercial pressure and a weight of expectation to be a perfect mum; for some there's the grief and sadness of  being chlidless or losing a mother; the conflicting emotions of fractured relationships or the death of a child.  I don't know if being single and turning 40 has made it harder (personally) this year. I don't know if being a priest, but not a wife and parent, is something which disrupts or enriches langague of mohterhood. Does it make it more accessible to the whole people of God?  We live with all sorts of assumptions about choice, gift, vocation and blessing... and there aren't easy answers. Only perhaps the texts I tried to pay attention to this morning (1 Samuel 1:20-end  & John 19:25b-27).

"Once upon a time..."

So begins Mothering Sunday, Graham Swift's recently published novella. It imitates the dynamics of a fairytale. It's a story of poverty and transformation: an infant abandoned on the steps of an orphanage; a life of service; the possibility of romance and tragedy.

Jane Fairchild, the 22 year-old protagonist, says 'what was a maid to do with her time, released for the day on Mothering Sunday, when she had no home to go to?'

Her story is set in 1924 - only a few years after Constance Smith, a High Church Anglican, published the booklet The Revival of Mothering Sunday. She reconnected the ancient traditions such as simnel cake to the American campaign for a day in praise of mothers, but rooted both in the church's liturgy.

Mothering Sunday or Mother's Day: perhaps the two have always had a complex social, cultural and religious interconnection. Constance's idea caught hold at a time of loss for many mothers following the Great War.

Loss and unknown origins are themes for Swift too. He explores the stories we inherit and the stories we imagine; the stories we read and those we tell:  'Could her mother have known', she ponders, 'making her dreadful choice, how she had blessed her?

Today calls to mind our stories: the paths not trodden and the unfulfilled longings; a tangle of memories and hopes; simple joys and unexpected blessing; the  responsibilities and expectations of parenthood. Stories of those who nourish us - mothers perhaps, but not exclusively so. Those who're frail, those we miss.

In the honesty of honouring or grieving for mothers, we remember that mothering is part of identity of the whole people of God.

Hannah - Chris Gollon (2013) 

Biblical stories of mothering are complex. Today we encounter Hannah nursing her child.  Like many women, she longed for motherhood.  A year or so earlier, she'd uttered wordless prayers of distress in the Temple.  Her husband loved her; others scorned her childlessness. In the presence of God she poured out her soul - her hopes and anxieties.

Perhaps we think it odd that Hannah gives up her son, Samuel. He is fruit of love and an answer to prayer - and yet she dedicates him to the Lord. She lets go of him - entrusting him to the watchful eye of an ageing priest called Eli.

I would encourage you to read more of Hannah's story - her ongoing praises and prayers; her love of her first born and her subsequent children. I would encourage you to read a little more about Samuel too.  He is faithful to Eli, like an adopted son or apprentice; he's faithful to God too. As Eli's eyesight fails, as the vision of God's people wavers, it's this young boy who hears God's call. He comes a trust-worthy prophet.

Hannah teaches us a great deal about the gift and cost of motherhood: the necessary letting go in love, that those who are born might take risks in discovering their calling.

Yesterday, at Diocesan Synod both Bishop Andrew and Canon Hazel spoke about the vocation of the whole people of God.  For all of us, it begins  with our attention to God in prayer and worship; for all of us, it is ignited by allowing the stories of God to shape us.

For all of us, it is about keeping the cross as our focal point, as Solomon put it in confirmation class yesterday. He, Henry, Olivia, Hugh and Josh talked about that being the foundation of our faith; a source of peace and praise; the assurance that we're not alone; the sign of our salvation.  The cross is our hope. It is  sign that nothing can separate us from that love.

As we celebrate Mothering Sunday, we are drawn into the mystery of that love.  Jean Vanier wrote of Jesus as:   'The naked king: stripped of power, mobility and dignity, to reveal the truth of love in an offering of self....  This naked man, condemned to death, is the Word of God made flesh who liberates us from all the  chaos inside and around us.'

Today we stand with Mary.

Like Hannah, Mary is an unexpected mother. Like Hannah, Mary praised God with a vision of justice and mercy. Like Hannah, Mary presented her Son in the Temple.

For Mary, there was a life time of letting go of him.  And she stands there now, with the other women, near the cross.

Sutdy (I) for Mary at the Base of the Cross - Chris Gollon (2015) 

She is there with the beloved disciple, who takes her into his home; into his heart.  This brief exchange in the midst of agony and death could be seen as an act of practical kindness; a son securing his mother's future.

It is far more radical.

On the cross, Jesus draws humanity to himself; that is the work that glorifies his Father; now it is nearing completion.  This final gesture, says Vanier,  is to bring Mary and John 'into oneness as he and the Father are one, to create a covenant of love between them.'

This covenantal bond is life-giving. In the face of death, Mary is to be mother to all beloved disciples; bearing Jesus to them that they may share in that mutual indwelling. He in us, we in him.

Likewise, the disciple  is to become a son to Mary; to bear Jesus to her.  This reciprocity is the life the church is called to.  It is the unity of love and communion.  We are one in Christ; we are united in him; we are members one with another.

This is our family.

We are gathered together around one table. We are not bound by biological kinship; but by the body and blood of Jesus Christ. We are united in unity of love, communion and blessing into which Mary and the Beloved Disciple stand. Behold  your  mother; behold your Son.

That is how we are to see each other - as family; a spacious community where we can grow in love, learning, care and trust.

The Eucharist is a place of challenge and blessing, where all find a home this Mothering Sunday. It is a place where we foster a culture of vocation; where God's Spirit is poured on his holy people.

This Mothering Sunday, along our confirmation candidates, let's pray for the fruit of the Spirit: for peace in anxiety; patience in our families; a little more joy, gentleness or self-control.

Let us pray for prophets who'll proclaim God's Kingdom and renew our as civil servants, researchers or accountants.

Let us pray for pastors in church, social care and volunteering.

Let us pray for evangelists sharing the good news to young and old, rich and poor.

Let us pray for apostles immersed in the world of music, commerce or education.

May we discern a calls both to ordination or leadership in the world in our midst.

As we pray for the deepening of our kinship in Christ, what is God calling you to do in his name?

This is no 'once upon at time'.  Today, we are all called, in the power of the Spirit to bear witness to the one who reveals the reconciling love of God, Jesus Christ.

©  Julie Gittoes 2016