Follow me!

This is the text of a sermon preached at Guildford Cathedral Eucharist - 3rd September. Having confessed to my shame of Tolkein being amongst my  'great unread', I rather enjoyed entering into that world (albeit briefly and hopefully not for the final time) when I was visiting friends last week. I couldn't help by engage with some of the resonances between the themes of the readings  [Jeremiah 15:15-21; Romans 12:9-21; Matthew 16:21-27] and the Middle Earth epic.

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. 

For those familiar with J.R.R. Tolkien’s novel, you’ll recall the description of Bilbo Baggins world: Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.

For some reason, for a child who loved books, I wasn’t captivated by this world and the adventures about to unfold. As an adult, I remain embarrassed by this confession of the ‘great unread’; a shame which is intensified as the movie franchise also passed me by. 

Until, that is, last week.

The Battle of the Five Armies is the third and final instalment in Peter Jackson’s three-part film adaption based on J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit. Replete with dragons, orcs, elves and mystical rings, this version of Middle Earth has been described as a ‘colossal technical achievement’; as well as a ‘magnificent,Wagnerian-style finale, full of sound and fury, and with an unexpected emotional kick’.

The visual extravaganza improvises on Tolkein’s text and draws us into a world closer to our own than we might imagine: warring factions and refugees seeking safety; courageous leaders and sacrificial love. 

In Thorin, the leader of the Dwarves, we see someone who is paralysed by despair and paranoia;  by anger at broken promises and an obsession with false idols. Shut away in Lonely Mountain, he places his trust in riches of ‘dragons gold’. 

And yet, as crisis looms he addresses his company saying: I have no right to ask this of any of you… but will you follow me … one last time?

Thorin faces past mistakes and steps up to lead his people, galvanising them in service of their kingdom. We see glimpses of tenacity, humility, loyalty, determination, trust and hope; none of those come without cost.

Follow me!

Today, the Scriptures, which shaped Tolkein too, invite us to face the demands of walking in God’s ways. We hear in Jeremiah something of Thorin’s despair; we hear on the lips of Peter misunderstanding; Jesus’ rebuke re-focuses our life; in Paul’s we confront the practical implications of genuine love. 

Jeremiah is facing disappointment and disaster. He had received God’s word with delight. He hadn’t needed to seek out human merrymaking because he rejoiced in the one who called him by name. Now he faces rejection and persecution; he's wounded and feels deceived by God. He shuns his ‘first love’.

Jeremiah Lamenting: Rembrant 

At this low point of introspection and bitterness, God draws near to him. There he is recalled. 

My word is precious, declare it! I am with you, they people will turn to you! Follow me!

The demands of this calling lie at the heart of the Gospel.

Last week, we were left with a cliff hanger: Peter declared that Jesus is the Messiah and the disciples were instructed not to tell anyone. And now we see why.

Jesus wanted to teach them what being Messiah meant: he wasn’t, as many expected, a triumphant figure, claiming his Kingdom with power and might. Instead glory and victory followed suffering.  In him, God’s love reached out to the depths of agony and isolation, suffering and even death; the victory of that  love would be revealed in resurrection. 

This isn’t the ending Peter expected. He rebukes the one who had rebuked the waves and calmed the storm. Jesus own words of rebuke are harsh; but perhaps that’s the point. He’s jolting Peter - and us - out of our collusion with a human perspective. 

Peter’s vision is shaped by the world’s understanding of power. Jesus is revealing the nature of God’s love, made perfect in the form of a servant. He is also giving a pattern for us to follow.  God’s love can be seen in our humanity; in our weakness not strength; in the face of threats not just opportunities. 

St Peter in Tears: El Greco

Follow me: obedience to that call involves taking up the cross. It means laying aside all that the world counts as ‘successful’; no longer striving to possess, consume, control or judge.

Our attempts to ‘save our life’ amount to being selfish: preserving our interests and indulgences; placing ourselves at the centre of the world. We could so easily rattle off a list of the petty, seemingly insignificant, moments when we know we’ve nudged what we want to the centre. The fruit of our selfishness might be impatience, greed, jealousy anger, quarrels or indifference.

Instead, losing our lives for the sake of Jesus begins by placing him at the heart of everything - of our lives, our work, our ministry, our friendships, of this cathedral. His love becomes our centre of gravity, pulling us closer. 

In a broken and complex world, loving faithfully, deeply and patiently is very hard indeed. But if we are precious in God’s sight, so is our neighbour - the one we find difficult, who isn’t like us, who is hostile to us. 

At the heart of the Battle of the Five Armies, we grapple with loving our enemy. When the Elf Thranduil turns away from the Dwarves, Tauriel rebukes him saying:  You think your life is worth more than theirs, when there is no love in it? There is no  love in you! At that moment, she takes her personal love of Kili and translates it to love for a people. 

Love that is selflessness makes us more human; and in that fullness we see the love of God with us.  To learn this love we have to follow Jesus; and in following we find life. And in following, God’s kingdom is glimpsed here.

Like Peter and Jeremiah before him, we find ourselves to be transformed. Paul explores what that looks like.  Having described the way in which we are united in Christ, and co-dependent on one another, he says ‘let love be genuine’.  

That is the acid test of our life and ministry in this cathedral - is love being made real amongst us?

Holding fast to the goodness of God’s love s an expression of corporate love which overflows in sincere hospitality to the stranger mutual affection. 

St Paul Writing his Epistles: Valentin de Boulogne 

This love is generous and good; leading to flourishing of the other; this love does not collude with abuse or hurt. Paul recognised the evangelistic impact of our character - of goodness, patience, kindness, self-control and joy.

The language that Paul uses is powerful and dynamic: be eager, earnest, diligent and zealous. There is no drudgery in this vision of life together - rather it is vibrant and animated by the Spirit. Paul’s language also calls us to perseverance - being aware of Christ moment by moment.

In this Eucharist, we like Jeremiah taste the sweetness of God’s word; like Peter we find challenge and forgiveness as we follow Christ; and in the power of the Spirit, the fire of God’s love is re-kindled in us. 

Like Bilbo Baggins, we’re called out of the comfort of our home. In fondness, Gandalf says he’s quite a little fellow in a wide world after all!  Sometimes we too might feel quite little; yet we like Bilbo have potential of learn, love and grow; let’s not underestimate the impact as we are sent as as the body of Christ; walking as a movement of love in the wide world.  

© Julie Gittoes 2017

Who I am?

This is the text of a sermon preached at Guildford Cathedral - exploring questions of identity. In reflecting on who Jesus is we are drawn into the mystery of God's redeeming love. We are more than a check-list of identity markers - finding our identity in Christ transcends that. As Paul grapples with the reality of what that means, we face the demands of being bound together. That calls us to a vision of equality - acknowledging priviledge, seeing race and changing the system. I am particularly grateful to links shared on Facebook by Ben Fulford and Steve Holmes. The texts were Isaiah 51:1-6, Romans 12:1-8 and Matthew 16:13-20.

Who am I?

Shakespeare is masterful in deploying deception, disguise and mistaken identities to answer the question at the heart of our human condition. 

He draws us into the anguish of tragedy as King Lear asks: “Who is it that can tell me who I am?”. 

He heightens the comedy in Twelfth Night as Viola, disguised as Cesario, declares to Olivia: “I am not what I am”.

Identity - yours and mine - is  made up of elements beyond our control and determined by choices we make. It’s deceptively simple - literally embodied: our looks and distinguishing features, reflected in mirrors, selfies or passports.

But it’s also complex. The boxes we tick on forms to monitor diversity or give customer feedback categorise our identity by age, gender, ethnicity, marital status, sexuality, disability, colour or income. 

Our CVs and Facebook profiles reflect our skills, personality, class, beliefs, interests, tastes, employment status.

Who I am?

Our identity embodies our memories and is shaped by our experiences; it’s reflected in the stories we tell and communicated in the first impression we make. Others aspects are private, hidden from public gaze:  the accents we lose; the names we change; the experiences we never share.

For each of us, our identity is also shaped by encounters with others; the degrees of association, intimacy, belonging and alienation.  But there are uncomfortable truths to the identities we claim; truths we need to consider with humility and, in Paul’s words, ‘sober judgement’ in our regard for others. 

Those truths include the snap judgements, labels and prejudices which diminish others because of 'difference';  the unconscious power, privilege and opportunity we accrue by being white or male or Oxbridge or married.

Thinking about identity matters - yours, mine, ours. It matters because of the way in which it shapes political discourse. It matters because of the fragility of our common life. We cannot remain silent in the face of Charlottesville: racial justice is part of our gospel proclamation.

As such, it demands confession of corporate sin, listening to our brothers and sisters of colour, educating ourselves and naming what an American pastor Sean Bawulski, calls ‘white supremacy’ as a ‘contemporary caste reality with a long history’.

Identity matters because, in the words of Isaiah, God’s teaching and justice will be ‘a light to the peoples’.  

It matters because we hear the question ‘who I am?’ on the lips of Jesus; and in naming him as the Messiah, the Christ, we are drawn into the merciful love of God. 

It matters because Paul calls us respond to that mercy means members one of another in Christ; therefore we pray and witness to God’s reconciling love in places of pain and anger.

Isaiah’s words of encouragement to those held captive in Babylon also offer consolation to those held captive by inequality, oppression, stereotypes and discrimination. We are to seek after righteousness in the midst of darkness - to see race and change the system. In Why I’m no longer talking to white people about race, the journalist Reni Eddo-Lodge is helping the church and others to rise to this challenge (quotations from Steve Holmes).

For Isaiah, our identity is rooted in the inheritance of faith shared with Abraham and Sarah, our ancestors. The prophet looks back to the rock from which God’s people are hewn: one person; called by name; faithful to God; a blessing to all peoples. 

Christ the True Vine, 16th century Greek Icon

Isaiah looks to the near future: expressing the hope of liberation and the restoration of the promised land. He also looks to a time when the all peoples will be drawn into this joyful kingdom; when God’s justice will bring deliverance; when a light will shine and not be overcome by darkness. 

He points to the suffering servant, the Messiah, the Christ. He speaks of the cosmic scope of salvation; of what will pass away and the renewal of all things; of new creation bursting forth.

Everything that Jesus does points to such a Kingdom as this: he uses parables of seeds and yeast to demonstrates the potential for transformation flowing from the tiniest gesture; he debates with a Syro-Phoneician woman with a shocking humour worthy of Jimmy Carr; offence reveals the truth that God’s mercy stretching across markers of ethnicity and gender.

Now we find Jesus in Caesarea Philippi: in a district which is a point of intersection between Israel and the Gentile world, he asks the most significant question of identity there is: 

Who am I? 

The responses are based on the hearsay and speculation - he’s identified as a returning prophet. He presses the point: what do you say? 

Who am I?  Peter names the reality that this is the one who brings freedom, the expected one, the very embodiment of God’s justice, the one who is the light of the world; the Messiah; the Christ; God with us. 

Like Abraham, Peter steps out in faith and is renamed: the rock on which we are built, with Christ the cornerstone. Peter’s impetuous and bold; he denied Jesus and disagreed with Paul. And he prayed, sought healing and continued to witness.  Such grace revealed in human frailty is our hope.

The Apostle Peter: Rembrandt, 1632 

We too fall short, as individuals and an institution; we make mistakes and get frustrated.  And yet the church is part of the fulfilment of God’s purposes.  Our identity, in all its diversity, is drawn into Christ. By the power of his Spirit we are called to love with mutual, indiscriminate affection. In so dong we embody the character of the new creation, begun in Jesus’  life, death and resurrection.

Who am I?  

One called by name at baptism and nourished in word and sacrament as Christ’s body. We share in practices of confession, penance and reconciliation in order that our identity can be marked by God’s healing love and peace. 

Our identity in Christ means that none of the gifts of his body, the church, is lost; no human being devalued. Paul is grappling with when he explores how we are to live in response to the mercy of God in Romans.

The appropriate human response to God has always been worship: but Paul takes the categories of Temple sacrifice and applies them to our living bodies. Bodies which are acceptable, pleasing and holy - regardless of age, gender, race, appearance or ability. And by the power of his Spirit we are transformed and renewed.

Communion Of Saints is a painting by Elise Ritter

Paula Gooder says of these two commands: ‘presenting our bodies to God involves places who we are and what we do into his care and keeping. Once we do that then it comes imperative that we do not allow our minds to be moulded by this age - the old creation that will pass away - and all its concerns’. 

Who I am? 

Our identity is found in Christ; as as his body we belong to each other, one in our differences. 

As we share in this Eucharist, we are caught up in this the new creation. Your identity is moulded by an ongoing process of inner  transformation - so that our lives might be visibly transfigured. 

Our worship doesn’t end abruptly the moment we leave the cathedral - rather we continue to offer a living sacrifice in our homes, schools, workplaces and communities. May our gifts, blessed at this altar, be as light in the darkness: generous, compassionate, wise and prophetic.

Educating the heart

The text preached at the Cathedral Eucharist on 30th July: I'm used to my sermon writing mind alighting on 'curious' connections, but yesterday I ended up re-reading sections of Mark Haddon's 'The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time'. I vividly remembered the scene where Christopher goes to the Underground for the first time - the noise and wind and waiting for silence. 

Thinking about the Underground made me recall the 'thoughts for the day' posted on customer information white boards in ticket halls. So my train of thought went back to Solomon/wisdom, Paul/Holy Spirit and Jesus' parables - 'the kingdom of God is like...'. The texts were 1 Kings 3:5-12; Romans 8: 26-end; Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52.

I could feel a strong wind and a roaring and I closed my eyes and the roaring got louder and I groaned really loudly but I couldn’t block it out of my ears… and the roaring turned into a clattering and a squealing and it got slowly quieter and then it stopped and I kept my eyes closed… and the train started moving and it roared again… and it went into the tunnel at the end of the little station and it was quiet again… and the people were all walking into the tunnels that went out of the little station. 

The London Underground: captured with the words of Christopher, the 15 year old narrator come detective at the heart of Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time.

The Underground: overwhelming for Christopher who has Asperger’s Syndrome - who’s never gone further than the end of his road. 

The Tube: synonymous with heat, wind, noise, tunnels, escalators, interchanges, crowds, adverts, buskers,  pushchairs, suitcases, jostling, armpits, swaying, headphones, iPhones and the Evening Standard - read and then discarded.

Perhaps we’ve become immune to sensory and social overload as we navigate by instinct: the discomfort of forced intimacy; grimly avoiding eye contact; standing on the right; rushing by on the left. 

The beep of contactless payment or the frustration of ‘seek assistance’ and finally the thud and clunk of the barriers. 

And then, often in italicised script or in block capitals, we see thoughts for the day posted on customer information whiteboards from from Angel to the Oval, Earls Court to London Bridge.

The anonymous wisdom: Trust that every situation has seeds for growth and opportunity.

Or: The world is full of nice people, if you can’t find one, be one.

Words from John Constable: I never saw an ugly thing in my life… light, shade and perspective will make it beautiful.

Or Aristotle: Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all. 

After the roaring, rushing, clattering and squealing there’s space to reflect on human life and character. What do we want - or need? Is it time to shift our perspective or enlarge our vision? How do we live wisely?

We hear of Solomon’s musings on such questions, not in the din of rush hour but in the depths of his sleep. Prompted by God’s desire to bestow a gift on him, he examines the changes in his personal situation.

First he recognises the great and steadfast love of God; then he acknowledges the way in which his father sought to walk faithfully in obedience to God’s love.  

David may have stumbled and failed but he also repented and found forgiveness. His son is acutely aware the weight of mantel he’s taking on - of his youth, his inexperience and the enormity of the task ahead. 

He knows that wealth, longevity or revenge over his enemies aren’t the answer. Good governance depended on an understanding mind and the capacity to discern what is good.

And that is the beginning of wisdom - to know our limitations, to turn to the love of God and to reflect honestly on ourselves and our situation.  

Few are called upon to national leadership; each of us are called discern what is good. Whether it’s on Chapter or community committee; in family crises and budgeting priorities; in the mundane and the life changing; in the impression we make and the future we shape. 

Sometimes life can be overwhelming - like Christopher’s physical perception of being on the underground platform: we feel at the mercy of forces around us, unsure of what’ll happen next; listening, make sense, responding. Oftentimes, we bide our time - waiting for people and noise to ebb away. 

We understand the wind and roar of the tube; but it’s harder to know how to pray in the midst of weakness, adversity and indecision. Then we, like Christopher, groan audibly or inwardly; waiting for the quietness to descend. 

Breath Of God: Deborah Brown Maher

Like us, Paul groans in weakness - like him we do not lose hope because we trust in God’s loving purposes. Romans is, in part, a clarion call to live wisely - trusting in the power of reconciling love God in Christ and abiding in the Spirit.

God’s great and steadfast love has been made known among us in Jesus Christ. In him, humanity is destined to be conformed to his image. We are called and restored to right relationship with God and each other. Through Jesus’ life, death and resurrection, we are justified: that is, made right with God. We share in this glorious inheritance with a large family. 

This is our hope: nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. All this has been accomplished. We are to live wisely by embodying the implications of the depth of this love, the scope of its embrace, the personal implications and the demands of being part of this new creation.

Wiliam Blake: sketch of the Trinity 

The Spirit helps us to pray: searching out all our fears, distress, vulnerability and hardship; knowing our hopes, loves, opportunities and our heart. The very groans of our hearts are accompanied by the sighs of the Spirit. 

Our groans are translated into most intimate language of God’s breath.

In the noise of our world, and in the sighs of our hearts, we are to have wise and discerning minds. We are to pay deep attention to God’s steadfast love and to the movement of God’s Spirit in our own situations. 

And then, perhaps, we will see something of the kingdom of heaven on earth.

Like the thoughts on the underground, Jesus’ parables are brief, puzzling and memorable. No one image captures what the kingdom of heaven is like; each story educates our heart and shapes our character. Each scenario changes our perspective - enabling us to see beauty in light and shade.  Parables speak of growth and opportunity in every situation, however inauspicious. 

Jesus enlarges our vision through seeds, branches, yeast and flour: the insignificant things which harbour potential for growth, refuge, nourishment in and for the world.

He educates our hearts with a kingdom-vision of joy and delight; which demands our whole-hearted commitment, giving all that we have to make known the love of God. A love that will not let us go.

Jesus shifts our perspective: casting a net which reaps an abundant harvest; reminding us as Canon Andrew did last week of the difference between God’s merciful judgement and the limitations of our judgementalism. 

To be trained for this kingdom, means valuing the old and new; what is given and what is found in our pursuit of God’s loving wisdom.

In this Eucharist, let us pray ‘thy kingdom come: that in the noise we might find stillness, as the Spirit helps us in our weakness; that nothing will separate us from God’s love in Christ Jesus; that we, his body, may grow in love, mercy and wisdom.

© Julie Gittoes 2017

Desire and love that reaches out to us when we fall

Laura?
Yes, dear.
Whatever your dream was, it wasn't a very happy one, was it?
No.

So begin the closing moments of Brief Encounter. It evokes an era which feels remote to us now. The defined gender roles, social conventions, style of dress and clipped RP accents become the stuff of parody. Yet it's a film which evokes the intensity of human feeling: the longing of Laura and Alec, from their serendipitous meeting until their disrupted parting moment, is captivating.  The Rachmaninov stirs us as we are swept up in their smouldering passion; the romance of steam trains and the desolation of lashing rain; the ordinariness of routine and the ease with with which we do the very thing that we hate and regret.

I ran until I couldn't run any longer. I leaned against a lamp post to try to get my breath... I know it was stupid to run but I couldn't help myself. I felt so utterly humiliated and defeated and so dreadfully dreadfully ashamed.

Having fled the apartment, Laura's voiceover reflects on her response to the interrupted rendezvous with Alec. She rings her husband, compounding her guilt and shame, saying: it's awfully easy to lie when you know you're trusted implicitly. She finds herself at the foot of the War Memorial and sits down.  The disruption of her personal and family life and her inner turmoil are evident.  A policeman approaches - her guilt is magnified as he eyes her suspiciously. Confronted by this tangible representation of law enforcement, she feels like a criminal. She is no longer law-abiding.

The dramatic narrative of Brief Encounter draws us into exactly the dilemma that Paul finds himself wrestling with in Romans.  A few verses earlier he acknowledges that the commandments are good and holy; the law itself is of spiritual value. Yet, like the archetypal bobbie, who asks Laura if she's feeling alright, the law reveals our human frailty. It reveals our propensity to make a mess of things. We know what is right - and we long to do it. Yet we don't do it.  Our own actions are a mystery to us.

Laura reflects on her relationship with Alec, describing what they have done as being cheap and low. Alec himself says: the feeling of guilt is and doing wrong is too strong isn't it. The prospect of separation also brings a violent wretchedness, even to the point of Laura wanting to die. Trembling on the platform edge, she faces the overwhelming desire not to feel anything ever again.

The noise of the train roaring and screeching through the station; the flickering lights in the carriages; the clattering wheels: there is no other sound track to this moment of despair.  I am of the flesh sold into slavery under sin. I do not understand my own actions. I do the very thing that I hate... I do not do the good I want.

Such moments of crisis are not unknown to us - personally, pastorally, collectively.  Perhaps they are less dramatic: the inability to delight in others, but rather to undermine them; the moments we lose patience with the person who frustrates us; our persistence in pursuing desires which end up possessing us; our institutional anxiety that makes us desperate, undermining our capacity to tell the compelling good news of salvation.

Paradoxically, this expression of our embodiment - our very fleshly nature - is a consequence of the overflow of love and freedom in creation.  Our creatureliness is good; yet we get caught up in 'stuff' that redirects our desires.  The priest and theologian Dan Hardy has a word for this: he calls it extensity. The risk of the gift of creaturely freedom is that as we are sent forth, we are drawn outward; this 'spread-out-ness' means we are in danger of losing the sense of God's presence with us.

We are overwhelmed with choice and our desires are ignited by new and exotic things.  Our increasingly dispersed lives, no longer fully centred on God, leaves us feeling at the mercy of the law of our minds. Lest we think that consumerism, promiscuity, fragmentation and injustice are twenty-first century concerns, we only have to revisit our first lesson.  Jeremiah challenges God's people over their abandonment of God's law, their stubbornness and refusal to listen. Rather than worshipping the Lord their God, they worship other gods, indeed any gods.

The consequences of this 'spread-out-ness' are dire: Jeremiah gives voice to a very physical disruption of life in terms of the loss of land and heritage. This expresses a spiritual dislocation. The people called to be holy and beloved, the people called to bring light to the nation, are cast adrift. How can they retain their identity and purpose apart from the God who is holy?

The response of a faithful God, a God of covenant and promise, is to seek out his people. He will bring them back - like a fisherman or a hunter.  God reaches out to us.  Our iniquities are not concealed, nor can we hid from God's love. Dan Hardy has a word for this too. He calls it intensity.  By that he means God's self-movement of love towards the world - in creation and redemption, in the ongoing perfection of human life in the world.  Such love is attractive and compelling; we are drawn to the light.  We are gradually turned away from self-absorption back towards attentiveness to God, and to right relationship with others.

Jeremiah's exhortation affirms that nature of God offering strength and refuge in the midst of trouble. Alongside the hope of restoration of God's people, we glimpse a vision of universal scope:   to  you, O Lord, shall the nations come.  The consequences of sin are corrosive on human hearts and within communities. But this extensity is met by intensity.  Wretched man, writes Paul, who will rescue me from this body of death?   Then wretchedness turns to praise: thanks be to God, through Jesus Chr ist our Lord.  In him there is no more condemnation.

In Christ, God dwells with us.  In his life, death and resurrection, the power of God breaks in.  In face to face encounters men and women find healing, purpose and dignity.  In teaching and proclamation, in acts of justice, compassion and reconciliation,  the proximity of God's Kingdom is made known. Our human brokenness is named; our failure to fulfil the demands of the law is evident.  Yet, that failure is not the final word.

Rather in the midst of the complexity of our lives - our loves, joys, sorrows and burdens - we are assured of forgiveness. We are called to respond to this in a spirit of repentance: returning and resting in God's love. On the cross God's Son defeats the power of sin and death; in the resurrection the promise of new life and abundant life is revealed.

As T. S. Eliot expresses it:  we become renewed, transfigured, in another pattern./Sin is Behovely, but/ All shall be well, and / all manner of thing shall be well... All manner of thing shall be well / By the purification of the motive / In the ground of our beseeching.

As God's people that hope of being redeemed from fire by fire is expressed in our worship: as we share in praise and prayer, bread and wine our humanity is transformed because we are confronted with the holiness of God - in power, might, strength and love. Our appetites and longings become desire for God and for the well being of the other. We are caught up in God's involvement in the world - not in our own strength, but in the power of the Spirit. Paul goes on to dwell on this new life in subsequent chapters - knowing that all creation groans with longing for the fulfilment of this promise; knowing that whatever assails us, nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

That love is the source of our values - the virtues we learn incrementally.  Sometimes we speak about them in terms of the fruit of the Spirit - love and joy, patience and self-control.  On other occasions we explore the particular charisms of an institution - perhaps a corporate commitment to the formation of a diverse community, which handles disagreement by means of honest, generous and transformative conversation.   Day by day, we are called to pay a deep attention to God in prayer and worship, and we are also called to deep engagement with the world.

Our work, hobbies, relationships and passions will draw us into a range of networks and responsibilities. Wherever we find ourselves, we are to speak and act with integrity and creativity; improvising on the love of God within which we abide.  We are to be a sign of God's love in a world in which disrupted desires are not as romantic as Laura's passion, but the heart break as great.  In the face of human fears we bring the promise of peace.  With joyful hearts proclaim afresh in this generation the good news of salvation.

© 2015 Julie Gittoes