A whole lotta love

 Easter 7, 12 May: Sidney Sussex: Ezekiel 36: 24-8 and  John 17:6-19

‘A whole lotta love gone bad’: so runs the headline for The Guardian’s review of “The Tortured Poets Department”. 

Taylor Swift makes capital in processing her romantic travails: unsparing, with a quiet sadness.  Details ooze through the lyrics; love lost, lessons learnt, in searing particularity.

The Guardian review of 'The Tortured Poets Department' here

The closest I’ve come to my heart exploding, she sings, is a ring taken off her middle finger and put on the one people put wedding rings on. A joke to him that wasn’t a joke to her: playful or calculating, hurt by the one she knows and decodes. 

The one she’ll forget but not forgive, who didn’t measure up in any measure of a man. Was any of it true, she asks?  How do any of us ever know? 

To be human is to love: completely and imperfectly; hearts explode and spirits break. 

We live within the circles of intimacy of households and friendships, mentors and lovers. Somehow we are banded together as we attempt to live life, its challenges, failures, successes and rhythms. 

Our heartbeats ring out the joys; they toll the rhythms of our grief. We protect ourselves, retreating to solitude; we find balm in the company of others, the safety of friends; we take risks, giving all for another not knowing how it begins or ends.

Or as Swift puts it:  I would’ve died for your sins / instead I just died inside.

Today’s second reading takes us to the heart of love, to the heart of love in the face of betrayal and death. It takes us to the heart of Jesus’ prayer. 

Having washed his disciples’ feet, the atmosphere now carries the weight of pain and promise.  In Stations of the Gospel, Rowan conveys the intensity and density of this moment:

The bowl glows in the furnace.

Inside, the beads of sweat

Spit and scatter.

We might extend it in our mind’s eye: bread crumbs on the tables, the taste of wine lingering; the salt of sweat and tears; dirty water and the gaze of eyes turned towards him, and his eyes turned heavenward. 

‘I ask’ says Jesus. 

His parting words express the longing for unity in the face of betrayal, for protection in the face of hostility, and for joy as they are sent into the world.

The disciples have shared in his life up until this point. There is still so much that could be said - and letting go in the face of death breaks human hearts. He does die for our sins, all that separates us. There is still so much that will unfold - as resurrection life restores human hearts. He does not leave us dead inside.

They cannot bear it now. But he can ask, in love, for love to sustain them in loss; for love to renew their hope; for love to establish a new community. 

As David Ford puts it in his commentary, Jesus’s desire is that the: intimacy and intensity of God’s own life opened up for wholehearted, trusting participation in the ongoing drama of being loved and loving.

We and the disciples are sent into a world which can sometimes be hostile: where trust and participation is low; where communities can be siloed or marginalised. 

Jesus prays into that reality: that they and we might be protected in that ongoing drama.  

The worship that we share as we gather around our Lord’s table - the place where bread breaks and wine is poured out. Even now, our evening songs and prayers are but a gathered interval in our scattered life. 

We will be sent out from this place - blessed as we move into the spheres of our work and family life, our networks of relationship and numerous tasks.

The gift of the word is part of what sustains us, but the sacrament too. As the text of Wood’s anthem this evening reminds us, in me manet, et ego in eo, alleluia, the one who eats and drinks dwells in God, and God in them, alleluia. 

As bread gets inside us and enlarges our hearts, as blessing rests on us to expand our imaginations. In God, the desires of every living thing are satisfied.

Our hearts are turned from self-absorption to attention to God; and onwards into concern for others. God’s self-giving love for the world revealed in Jesus Christ, continues to flow through the power of the Spirit.

Jesus prays for this sanctification - this ongoing work of the Spirit.  Holiness is the nature of God - we draw near to this refining fire of love in worship, in penitence and faith, in forgiveness and renewal, moving from pain to peace, in our gathering and being sent.

As our introit puts: Holy is the True Light - passing wonderful, lending radiance to them that endured.

The radiance of that light falls on us too - in the heat of our conflicts and loves.  We share in ways of holiness - focused on what matters most, with dedication, and persistence. In this is glory and joy: in being faithful in small things, ordinary things; doing them with great love. 

As the seventeenth century priest and poet Thomas Traherne wrote:  ‘Those Things are most Holy which are most Agreeable with God’s Glory. Whose Glory is that he is Infinit Lov’.

There are echoes here in the words of the prophet Ezekiel. In the face of separation, exile and fragmentation he focuses on God’s action: gathering, cleansing and renewing.

Restoration confronts us with the radiance of holy and refining love. To be cleansed from the consequences of rebellion against God’s ways - letting go of the idols that have supplanted the commandments of love; letting go of the corruption that has exploited and diminished others.

God promises renewal: a new heart and a new Spirit. Human will and desire will be recommitted to ways of love. A heart of stone is cold, unresponsive and lifeless; a heart of flesh beats, kindles love and sustains life. 

When Jesus prays, he asks that we too might come alive to God’s love and God’s desire for the world.

In anticipation of Pentecost, we gather in awareness of risen life, but also in prayerful waiting. We are waiting for the Holy Spirit to touch human hearts, to create something new. 

We look to an inheritance, a home of unfading splendour; but here and now, we are being guided out of a troubled past and into an unknown future. The Spirit gives space for rehabilitation and redemption - in this world and in the world to come.

For now, we are called to continue in that drama of being loved and loving. To wholeheartedly participate in the life of the world - but with the intensity of God’s life in us; life shared in the intimacy of breath and gesture; in the infinite movements of renewal and pursuit of what is just, beautiful, equitable and peaceful. 

We are restored penitents.  Our heart beats celebrate life’s joys and mark our grief. Love will sometimes go awry; we won’t always measure up.  Everyday is an attempt to live this drama of being loved and loving. Sometimes we succeed; sometimes we don’t. But we practise habits of love - human and divine. We’re lent a radiance that restores.

© Julie Gittoes 2024

Under pressure

 Sunday 21 July:  Jeremiah 23:1-6, Ephesians 2:11-end and Mark 6:30-34, 53-end

What happened when Queen and David Bowie had individually booked recording sessions in Montreux, Switzerland back in 1981?

"We were fooling around and then just sort of jamming with tracks, recalled the late Freddie Mercury, and suddenly we said ‘why don’t we just see what we can do in the spur of the moment?’"

The rock anthem “Under Pressure” was the result.  Though they never went on to perform it together, we’ve probably all heard it. 

Still of Bowie/Mercury from BMU video of 'Under Pressure' (1981) 

As a piece of spontaneous collaborative music making, it certainly had impact - not just because of its unmistakable baseline and introduction, but because of the human sentiment of the lyrics: poignant as well as powerful. 

It talks about the pressure pushing down on me and you: pressure which risks splitting families and puts people on the streets. 

People take the streets for all sorts of reasons: campaign groups marching in protest or councillors trying to calm community tension; to gather in vigil, to walk with pride or dance in carnival. Some take to the streets because they have no home or place to rest. 

The world is about all that: people and pressure. Sitting on the fence, according to the lyrics, doesn’t work; and love might be torn; but ‘why can’t we give love one more chance? Give love, give love, give love.’

Queen and Bowie wrote that love was ‘an old-fashioned word’; ‘and love dares you to care for the people on the streets… dares you to change our way of caring about ourselves’. 

People under pressure need love and care. We see that running through today’s readings.

Scattered sheep neglected by their shepherds, left fearful, dismayed and lost. People who needed to be saved, finding care and safety. 

Peoples without hope - divided, othered and facing hostility. People longing for peace and reconciliation, being drawn into one new humanity in Christ.

Friends, family, neighbours bring the sick from villages, cities and farms so that they might touch the hem of Jesus’ cloak, finding compassion and healing. 

And love dares us to care for the people. 

Jeremiah was railing against the way in which bad leaders had destroyed lives and communities - through being self-serving and lazy as much as being corrupt or violent. The prophet not only speaks words of judgement but also promises that God will gather and bind up.

Raising up new leaders who will execute justice and righteousness resonates with hopes for temporal leadership: where power is exercised with accountability, in pursuit of justice rather than oppression. Jeremiah looks to a future where God will raise up those who will enable life to flourish; fulfilling the promise of creation 

Such life flows from obedience to the commandments, that old fashioned word ‘love’. A love which changes how we care for those under pressure, who risk life on the streets: the widow, the orphan, the migrant, the vulnerable. 

Such a righteous branch points us to Jesus: the one who not only deals wisely in love, but who is God’s love made flesh.

It is this love dwelling with us who draws all peoples into a new humanity.  Reading Ephesians reminds us of that uncomfortable experience of otherness - of life lived as strangers, without hope or belonging; life beyond the kinship of covenant. 

And yet, by God’s grace, we Gentiles are also drawn into the promise of peace. The pressures that separate us from God and each other are overcome in a love that goes to the very depths of pain and alienation. 

This is a love that dares to create one new humanity. This was the love that walked the streets of Jerusalem, the via dolorosa; the way of sorrows. This love bears the pressure in one body on the cross in order to break down hostility and division. He takes those things to the grave - and brings forth peace and new life. 

This peace reconciles God and humanity; our identities aren’t given up, but renewed in our shared identity in Christ.  His body draws us into a household of faith, giving us a new foundation. As we hear bread breaking, that life gets inside of us. Though many we are one. 

We are dared to love and dared to care. We are invited to deal with pressures and differences by being present to each other. Hearing each other's stories with curiosity; caring enough to begin to imagine a new future, together. 

We become a dwelling place of God’s Spirit - multiplying life and care and love in the face of pressures; being rooted in love across our cultures and bonds of kinship, to be drawn into a covenant of hope and peace; our torn loves are woven anew into a richer fabric; a reconciling passion and compassion. 

How do we dare to care and are to love? Today’s gospel presents us with glimpses of how Jesus notices the pressures on human bonds and responds with practical care. 

The disciples return from their time on the way - exhilarated and exhausted by all they’ve said and done, speaking words of peace and inviting others to turn back to God’s ways of love.  Perhaps they had shared hard stories too - of rejection and failure; the pressures of expectation. 

He sees this need and invites them to rest; to have some time in solitude. Given all we heard last week of the heartbreak and horror of his cousin, John the Baptist's death, perhaps he too knew he needed to find a  quiet place; to retreat for a while, to recuperate in the face of weariness and pressure. The leaders and the led need a love that changes how they care for themselves too. 

Mark’s gospel is famous for its pace - episodes of activity and moving on to the next thing - immediately and then immediately. It’s significant then that he also leaves us clues of how to respond to pressure - prayer, solitude, sleep, food, rest. 

It points us to the depth of the love at work in Jesus - fully human and fully divine. Reminding us that God also rests. 

Yet the pressure on the people - their desire for safety and healing, for hope and new life - means that they find a way of getting ahead of Jesus. Like crowds on the street seeking out a celebrity, they crash into the quietness of Jesus’ sanctuary.

In response to the pressure of others on him, Jesus doesn’t run or hide. He sees the sheep without a shepherd and has compassion on them. He begins to teach them - to dare to care in that old fashioned word of love.

What we don’t hear of, as our lectionary skips over the verses, is that Jesus also feeds the crowds. Broken bread falling over them that they might be satisfied. Then again, he insists on going away, seeking a quiet moment. 

The people press on. The pressure continues - from towns and villages and farms and onto the streets and into the market places. Those in need are carried by the love and care and hope of friends and neighbours, families and those who have noticed their need. 

They press in. They press on. The pressure leads them to touch just the edge of his robe.

And love dares him - us, you and me - to care for those on the streets. 

There was no passing the buck on compassion for Jesus; nor is he apologetic when it comes to the need for rest. We too live with that tension. How do we turn that pressure into love? 

For Jesus, there was no shame in taking a break, seeking a deeper peace; but he also saw the urgent needs of the crowd and knew what the world was about. He was able to hold his own hunger and yearning for peace together with the pressures of those who were scattered and afraid. We too need to recognise both - resting to restore our capacity to care. 

We live in a world of constant need. The demands are high. We can’t sit on the fence. We can give love one more chance, erring on the side of compassion. 

As broken bread gets inside of us this morning, as words of blessing enfold us, dare we remain hopeful that rested or under pressure our last dance is love: daring to care both for ourselves and those on the streets?

In this place of peace and sanctuary, may the eyes which have seen the tokens of God’s love in Christ, shine with the light of hope; may our bodies which have been fed and refreshed, share the fullness of life in the spirit. On the streets. In our households. Love. Under pressure.

© Julie Gittoes 2024

The Gardener

 Easter Day 31st March 2024:Isaiah 25:6-9, Acts 10: 34-43 and John 20:1-18

Jesus said to her, 'Mary!'

Mary Magdalene: a woman known and called by name.

She stood at the cross, watched the burial and returned to the tomb: weeping at daybreak. 

Last night at St Paul’s, Reza, Lily, Halle-May and Omid were also called by name - in part because of what happens next. 

Like them we are called by name because Mary’s tears were not the end. We’re called because of her witness.

Sometimes Mary’s faith and faithfulness have been spun into fantasy.

Some discredit or diminish her - others find in her a reason to hope. 

Mary Magdalene and the Risen Christ

In the Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown reduces her to the matriarch carrying Jesus' secret blood-line. 

  

Mel Gibson’s The Passion of Christ presents her as the sinful woman who repents.

In Judas, Lady Gaga narrates the story of a woman who knows love, betrayal and forgiveness.

Mary: called by name from a small village called Magdala. 

She walked from Galilee to Jerusalem because she saw in Jesus the depth of God’s love for us, allowed forgiveness and hope to fill her heart. 

That same heart breaks today in exhaustion and grief. She is utterly spent in love.

May weeps. 

The emptiness of the tomb unleashes raw emotion; the silence and cries that grief brings; the disrupted relationships and yet the desire to be with others. 

She tries to describe what she sees to Peter and John - telling them what she fears or thinks she knows. 

They run away from her and towards the tomb: caught between sight and insight, belief and bewilderment, they go home. 

Mary doesn't run. She stays.  She stands alone. Weeping.

Another voice repeats the angel's question; and she repeats her conviction. 

This is death. This is final. This is emptiness.

Supposing him to be a gardener, she meets his whys with her own ifs.

The space and the silence is shattered by one word: her name.

Here she is called. By name.

She is known. She is seen.

She addresses her Lord as Rabboni!

The unbelievable has happened in history: Jesus has been raised from death, all creation is bound to him in this living hope. The hope that love wins. Death is not the final world; forgiveness, renewal and joy echo throughout the world.

For Mary, an instinct as strong as grief compels her to reach out. 

In love she wants to hold and be held. 

Love replies, saying: Do not cling on to me.

In him, death was the beginning of life, not the ending of love. 

The lost intimacy of touch translates into the powerful embrace of story.

For us, as much as Mary Magdalene, embracing new life means letter go. She teaches us how. 

She points us to the risen Lord who loves us from loss to life, sorrow to peace.

In her grief and loss, she is called by name; she is brought home, to a place of peace;  in her letting go she is sent. 

She cannot cling on to her risen Lord; but she continues to walk in his light.

Mary walked from despair to hope. She learned to live and love more abundantly, more intensely, more lightly.  

This woman, this Mary, is the passionate, committed, intense and faithful witness to resurrection.

Her pain, tears, honesty and longing are gathered up. She shows us how to live, moment by moment. 

It's a profoundly sacramental pattern of life. We are renewed in our bodies - each Eucharist a foretaste of the heavenly banquet of well matured wine - and broken bread.  

Love shown in such signs reminds us all that we are can become a means of grace and hope and good news to others.   She goes to her brothers to face their needs and expectations with  the words 'I have seen the Lord'. 

She embodies the conviction we hear when Peter himself speaks : the love of Christ which urges us on; the death that overcomes death; risen life lived for others; the liberation of forgiveness.

We are a new creation - Peter, like Mary, recognizes that love is known in the particular: we are called by name, through a veil of tears, to be witnesses to the fact that God’s desire is for communion. 

In the power of the Spirit, may we, like Mary, witness to the love of God made manifest in Christ Jesus. Love that forgives the past; love that transforms the present; love that enlightens hearts, minds; love that brings the life that is life

Mary Magdalene and the Gardener - Jay Hulme.

At first Mary thought He was a gardener, 

this miraculous Son.

She saw the dirt under His nails

though the tears in her eyes,

and saw not the grave, but the bringer of life;

And how was she wrong, then?

This woman wrapped in grief,

who saw the dirt of a borrowed tomb,

and thought at first of things which bloom;

Which turn their heads to the sun,

and burst into joyous colour. 

© Julie Gittoes 2024

Perfect Days

 17 March 2024, Lent 5: Jeremiah 31:31-34, Hebrews 5:5-10 and John 12:20-33

Oh, it’s such a perfect day, I’m glad I spent it with you.

Somewhere in downtown Tokyo, underneath the lights of the revolving Sky Tree building, Hirayama wakes up, folds the bedding away, washes, trims his moustache, mists his tree seedlings and yawns as he looks to the sky embracing a new day. 

It’s a routine which runs through Wim Wenders’  film “Perfect Days” - with minor variation in response to the people whose lives intersect with his quiet existence. Hirayama cleans toilets - with care and diligence - eats lunch in the same garden, takes a photograph - on film - of light through the canopy of trees - continues cleaning. 

Perfect Days

He goes to the same bathhouse, laundrette and cafe-bar; he listens to cassette tapes in his van, reads the books he’s bought from the bargain shelf, takes off his glasses and sleeps. He observes the mini-dramas of others -  his niece, a divorcee and colleague - quietly offering what they don’t know they need; his work renders him all but invisible, and steps aside to avoid inconveniencing those needed to use the facilities. 

Oh, it’s such a perfect day, I’m glad I spent it with you.

Oh such a perfect day you just keep me hanging on.

He lives alone, without being lonely. He says little, but hears much. For him now is now, not yet is not yet.  His is an analogue world not a digital one: he lives lightly and simply, with a depth of attentiveness attuned to shifting moods: the shimmering light and shadows as leaves sway in the breeze, but also as the light and shadow of life, relationships, work and routines move around us. 

As these perfect days unfold, we see the world through Hirayama’s eyes; we glimpse something of his inner life. Despite hints of past sorrows - and occasional awkwardness, he has a sense of peace, his desires ordered to simplicity but above all contentment and a quiet joy. 

Such a perfect day.

Hirayama is inviting us to look at the world not just with our eyes but with our hearts open to its beauty. It is a way of seeing which sees the significance of the insignificant; which waits patiently for others to share the fears and sometimes takes almost foolish risks of generosity. 

Looking at the world with our hearts, and seemingly foolish risks of generosity, run through our readings today. 

In Jeremiah, we hear of a broken covenant, of God’s people being likened to an unfaithful spouse. But that is not the end of the story. God’s response to wayward human hearts and fractured relationships is to reach out again and again in love. 

There is forgiveness in the face of failure; a setting aside of the sin that separates and wounds. The covenant is renewed - renewed by the law being written on human hearts: love God with all that you are, love your neighbour as yourself. 

Oh such a perfect day you just keep me hanging on. 

You made me forget myself, I thought I was someone good.

Today's gospel begins with curiosity, seeking the good - with desire to see Jesus. We don’t know any more than that.

Are the Greeks seeking after the one who turned water into wine at Cana, bringing joy and abundance when human resources ran out? Are they seeking the one who fed thousands on a hill side and went on to describe himself as the bread of life, the true food?  

Had they heard of the stories he’d told which spoke of a radical kingdom of justice and peace - or of the conversations with individuals seeking to live out of an economy of love? Had rumours reached them that Jesus had called Lazarus out of the grave restoring him to life?

Perhaps this simple request went deeper than the desire to hang out with a celebrity - the equivalents of autographs and selfies.  Perhaps they did want to encounter the one who keeps us hanging on; who helps us forget ourselves, drawing us back to what is good and loving.

Jesus’ response in that moment is to meditate on his death - to speak in that moment of the hour that had come. Now was now. 

He names the fear and describes his life as seed falling to the ground - dying to bring life and fruit. He challenges his hearers to sit so lightly to this life - even to hate it - so that they might know eternal life. 

In “Perfect Days”, we watch as Hirayama notices a tiny sapling. The tree's seed has fallen to the ground and brought new life - but will struggle without light and nutrients. He takes it carefully from the soil, re-pots it at home and will nurture it until it can be given a place to flourish into maturity. 

Perhaps his way of living - in relation to his work, to creation, to others - is the kind of life giving subversion of life that Jesus is talking about. Hating the pace of a digital world; hating the rush to consume and exploit. Instead life is lived by noticing and responding: noticing where life can be nurtured, in the face of desires and worries; in the face of what we don’t know and even death itself.

On these perfect days… Lou Reed's refrain sounds more hopeful: you’re gonna reap just what you sow. Life, joy, compassion; the world seen through a heart inscribed with the covenant of love. 

Jesus speaks of his own death as a point of gathering all people together - people of all nations and languages. We are gathered not out of our choice but because of our need for love and healing; we are gathered because of God’s will and choice and being is to love us first. 

Jesus will be lifted up on a wooden cross that will become for us the tree of life: in the coming weeks, we will keep our own vigil around the cross - walking in its path - gathering around the agony and glory, the depth of God’s love for us, the ultimate communion. It is a song of love unknown - love to the loveless shown; our dear friend, who in our need, his life doth spend.

All that wounds us - all the world’s pain, hatred and indifference - is drawn into Jesus’ body: a sacrifice of love which dies like a seed, in order to bring life and replenish the earth. Here the fullness of God comes near to us, is made visible to us, in all that is overwhelming, frightening and alienating. As Hebrews expresses it, his prayers, cries are tears unite with ours; his suffering brings life and healing, calling us into obedience. Here God sees us - comes to us in our longing and loves us. 

Here, God reaps what God sows: drawing us to love and life with a compelling and mysterious power. It is strange. It is holy. Here we are drawn together in communion - bread of our basic needs, wine of the most joyous feast. Here our many bodies are united in one body - with the one who keeps us hanging on. 

As we shape perfect days - days of living lightly and intensely, of paying deep attention to the world and each other, may we remember it is for love. May we see with our hearts. May we love quietly, using words when we have to. May we plant seeds of hope, knowing what might have to die - in us and around us - for life to come.

Or, in the words of Laura Jean Turman, a queer writer and preacher from Atlanta:

Keep my anger 

from becoming meanness.

Keep my sorrow 

from collapsing into self-pity.

Keep my heart

soft enough to keep breaking.

Keep my anger 

turned towards justice,

not cruelty.

Remind me that all of this,

every bit of it,

is for love.

Keep me fiercely kind.

© Julie Gittoes 2024