Our origin story

 Sunday 7 July, Trinity 6:  Ezekiel 2:1-5, 2 Corinthians 12:2-10, Mark 6:1-13

Is this not...

Margaret the shopkeeper’s daughter?

Gordon the minister’s son?

Is this not...

David the stockbroker’s son?

Theresa the vicar’s daughter?

Keir the toolmaker’s son?

And they took offence at them.

Whatever their background, our politicians face judgement and scrutiny over where they come from. We are interested in their stories of origin, if you like. 

Does it make them trustworthy and relatable or a good role model? Will it shape their policy decisions or inform how they govern?

Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer from The Evening Standard

At one end of the spectrum, Rishi Sunak was mocked for naming Sky TV as something he had to do without as a child; at the other Angela Rayner faced hostile comments about being a single parent, living in council housing and working in care. 

Some take offence at them; others find inspiration.

Our own origin stories shape our attitudes and character; our priorities and commitments. Being a plumber’s daughter has perhaps shaped my vicar-ing more than anything else - watching my dad deal with emergencies, irregular hours, chatting over a cuppa, knowing his patch and having a pint in the pub. 

Perhaps you’ve been told: remember who you are and where you come from. Do we hear it with a sense of pride and dignity or as a put down that keeps us in our place. 

In today’s gospel reading, Jesus goes home. He’d got a reputation: calming storms, healing the sick, telling stories, earning the trust of those who followed him. 

Now it’s his friends and neighbours who hear him teach. They are amazed by his wisdom. Astounded by what he says, by what he does. He’s got authority. He’s the local lad made good. 

But that doesn’t last long. 

They take umbrage. They know whose son he is. They know his trade. Aren’t his siblings still around. Who the heck does he think he is?

They take offence at him. 

And that suspicion became a limiting factor: a lack of trust sucked out the oxygen of hope. Most of them were unable to see beyond the familiar; didn’t think God could transform lives through a person they knew. There were some though who took that imaginative leap - whose curiosity and embrace brought healing.

There were a few people who allowed Mary’s son to be seen: to see the fullness of God’s love in his wisdom and authority. A love that allowed them to be fully themselves - not defined by upbringing or status, background or age. 

If we can grow beyond the stories people tell about us - the burdensome assumptions or shortcuts - then we can dare to offer that same space and encouragement to others; nurturing them so that their roots and rootedness can lead to flourishing and fruitfulness. To untangle the stories we tell about ourselves and others demands patience, kindness and wisdom. 

The late evangelist and writer Rachel Held Evans describes this as spiritual maturity - a habit of ‘sorting fact from fiction (or, more precisely, truth from untruth), and embracing those stories that move us toward wholeness while rejecting or reinterpreting those that do harm.’

It takes humility. It might hurt. It does heal. 

God chooses to dwell with us as Mary’s son. His origin story is well known - scandalous, humble, puzzling, familiar. The one who speaks of love, compassion, justice and hospitality; who casts our fears and reassures doubts. The one who leads us more deeply into truth; who enlarges our hearts and extends our horizons so that we too can serve others, rekindle hope and bring compassion a little closer. 

In a sense, the refrain ‘remember who you are and where you come from’ becomes a more powerful origin story than we can dare imagine. Remember we are God’s children - bearing God’s likeness in the frailty of our bodies; bearing God’s love in our hearts. 

We can’t outgrow that story or leave it behind. But too often the world with its dazzling prizes and competition for resources reduces us to the pull of selfish desires or market forces. 

In response, God loves us and loves us to the end. Jesus may have been rejected by some who knew him too well, but that does not stop him extending that circle of invitation and blessing. 

He does that by instructing others to share that work with him. He sends the disciples out in pairs - with simplicity, trusting in God and in the kindness of strangers. They are to accept what they need rather than seeking personal gain; staying where they’re made welcome, moving on if not. They are to follow Jesus and trust his authority. 

Jesus had spoken in parables about God’s word being like seed - scattered with generosity, germinating and taking root unseen, but bringing forth a harvest or making space to shelter others in hospitality. The message they share points to Jesus but also to a new way of life; to the reign of God with justice and compassion, creativity and peace. Hope and change flows from this spirit of repentance - turning or returning to God’s ways.

Strangers become friends on this journey. Following in the way of Jesus, the disciples take on the responsibility of authority. But it is authority that does not coerce or oppress Rather it is authority exercised as the fellow traveller, the guest, the servant of others; the one committed to the well-being of the other; the one gesturing towards healing, wholeness and hope. 

Such a pattern or practice is in stark contrast to the ways in which authority can be misused, exploited or abused. The church - both in our institutional life and in the life of individuals - is not immune from that. Our commitment to safeguarding helps us become a safer church - aware of our own biases, noticing things which may cause concern, being responsible and accountable.

When he writes to the church in Corinth, Paul distinguishes between true and false claims to authority. Just as the disciples relied on the authority of Jesus, so Paul reminds his hearers authority flows from God, whose love is made perfect in human weakness in Jesus and the ongoing work of the Spirit. 

Such authority within the church has one purpose: building one another up, so that we can grow together into the full maturity of being human in Jesus. He mentions his own challenges to emphasise that it is God who is the source of strength and comfort in all that we experience. Within the limits of our humanity we can know grace to strengthen us in our service, to inspire us with compassion and creativity and to give us courage in the challenges we face.

Ezekiel too needed courage as he prepares to speak the word of the Lord to a stubborn and rebellious people. He moves them towards a vision of hope and restoration - encouraging them to reorder their lives according to God’s ways of justice, mercy and peace. Sometimes hope flows from the kind of tough love that Ezekiel expressed. 

A change of government always brings with it change: of language, ministers, policies, supported by our civil servants. We pray for all those in public office - that service may indeed bring hope as our new PM puts it. We are to untangle the stories we hear so that truth might also build trust, as the political editor, the late Charles Reiss, put it.

But we also rest on the assurance that we do remember where we come from - those in this church and in our wider community. We are children of God, yet we sometimes find ourselves in exile from the kind of social life God desires for us. May our repentance, our turning to God in Jesus, enable us to seek the welfare of our city. 

© Julie Gittoes 2024

Hearts: troubled and embraced

The texts of two reflections shared on during our zoom worship this morning. Thinking about parting conversations, being enfolded by, and letting go in, love and the ways in which our lives are drawn into God's story.  The thing about an embrace is that it is risky - we have to wait with outstretched arms for the other to respond; but for an embrace to be an embrace, we have to let go as we open our arms again. May we enfold and bless in our communities. The texts were Acts 7:55-end and John 14:1-14.

Reflection One

Like many folk, I’ve found the BBC’s adaption of Sally Rooney’s bestselling novel Normal People to be utterly compelling. 

The ending however, is about a letting go. 

A parting conversation. 

Looking back on misunderstandings, triumphs, disappointments, failures in communication. 

These have been troubled hearts. 

A still from the BBC's adaption of 'Normal People'

And Connell says:  I wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t for you. And Marianne contemplates this new life that’s been made possible.  

They emerge from the shadows of loneliness; hearts troubled by being unloveable beat with purpose. One person has shaped another; the other has marked them with love. 

They’ve had a place in each others lives and hearts; they still do. They’ve grappled with questions of truth, trying to find their own way and are embarking on a new phase of life.

I wonder if the disciples, as we encounter them today, feel a bit like that too. Partly despondent and uncertain. In the midst of this parting conversation, do their minds drift back to that moment of calling? The time when the stepped out of boats and looked to a broader horizon?

Fishers of Men - Michael Dudash

 Did they perhaps recall other meals? The familiarity of the home of Mary, Martha and Lazarus; the seats amongst the religious leaders; the intense debate and the way Jesus would turn an observation into a new parable, a story to re-tell. How many of our deepest relationships and most memorable moments have been over a meal?

Jesus walking with his disciples - unknown

And there would have been conversations along the way. The one to one discussions; the opportunity to ask Jesus something away from the crowd; the moments of rebuke when they’d started to disagree.  We will have our own recollections of those we love and those who’ve had an impact on us:  genuine love and kindness; the colleague who inspired us; the person who held us close when we cried. 

Yet now, all those things are cast in a different light; conversations now are under a shadow. This is a farewell conversation. He’s talked of love. Again and again he says this commandment is made new. Love. But it isn’t cheap. 

Jesus washes his disciples feet - unknown

Some parting words we anticipate and script: the leaving do or the exit interview. Others we sit lightly too, aware that it might be the end: graduation days, the house moves, the lengthening gaps of time between calls. Yet every day holds that possibility of last words: things we can’t say; don’t say; the things we dismiss, cling to or only really hear long after the last breath. 

This conversation is one which shaped lives and imaginations; which has been dwelt on and lived with. A parting conversation which says: love allows you to do great things.

Now what does he say, the one who’d asked them what they were looking for and invited them to see? He says don’t let you hearts be troubled. He says trust me. Believe in God. He says there’s a place for you; and I’ll come to you. He says, after feet are washed and before bread is dipped, he says you already know all this.

The Lord's Last Supper - Okaybabs Studio

But the questions around this table are real and intense: we don’t know, how can we? Show us the Father, then it’ll be fine. The hearts of these disciples are troubled, perhaps our are too. And yet even in this movement Jesus stretches their imaginations. Their belief, their hope, their trust is not just in him as an end in itself; it’s not a personal possession. It is a more radical gift. Something greater will emerge as these troubled hearts embrace new life.

In Jesus, God chooses to dwell with us; to have a place with us. In the midst of grief, uncertainty and all that troubles our hearts, Jesus invites us to place our trust in God; to abide, with him, near the heart of the Father. We are held in this eternal embrace. 

William Blake

Yes, we trust that when earthly life is over, we will have a place at home with God, in whose image we are made. But here and now, in troubless days; in days of possibility, we have a place too. A place amidst homes and colleagues; churches and communities.

A place where new life is made possible, even when - especially when - there is sickness, disruption and death; even when we have let go of all that is familiar. In this letting go, we are embraced by a love that opens our hearts; by a love that gives us a share in God’s story. 

We will explore that in a moment through Stephen’s story woven into God’s story.

Let not your hearts be troubled. 

Reflection Two

We know that in our human experience, moments of letting go can be hard and messy. As adults, we experience the nervousness and courage of a toddlers first steps: when we say yes to a job; when we say I do to a loved one; when children move out; or when we empty a parental home. And there will be many more ‘letting gos’: moment by moment, when we resist the urge to cling on tightly to what we know in order to do a new thing.

Banksy

Our reading from Acts tells us of Stephen: of his letting go of life in order to gain life. He is enfolded in love. Earlier in Acts, we hear how he is one of those who is committed to care for some of the most vulnerable.  He is one of those deacons, filled with the Spirit, who with wisdom and compassion to a great work.  They take on the great work of enabling many bodies to become one body. Hope and struggle are bound together as resurrection life, life in abundance, breaks into the ordinary and intimate, the domestic and the public. 

Stephen reminds us that we live in what Willie Jennings calls ‘the tight space between faith and fear’. Wherever we are placed - at home or at work, in our daily activity and times of isolation, it is the nearness of the Spirit that prevents faith being overcome by fear. The Spirit that Jesus promises in his parting words enables us to imagine the embrace of Jesus;  and embrace that enfolds our deepest longings and enables us to embrace a new way of life. 

The Questions: We will have our own questions; uncertainty about finding the way; needing others to point us in the right direction; allowing us to trust the compass point, the GPS of God’s love.  We are enfolded love so that our lives are unfolded in love. Rachel invited us to sit with one particular question last week: where do we find abundant life, even in lockdown.

The Way: It’s a journey. Yes, Jesus is our way; he walks with us; guiding us behind and before. It takes time; and the process of placing one foot in front of the other changes us. In the 2010 film, The Way, Martin Sheen’s character experiences this change on the way to Santiago in Spain. A pilgrimage route walked by thousands, each one carrying hopes, griefs, expectations; yet the personal, as the film reveals, cannot be contained. On this way, the lives and loves of others change us.

The Truth: Jesus promises to be our guide; to be with us on path to the place he is going - through life and death to life eternal.  Jesus reveals the truth of God’s love: in all its depth and breadth. Jesus reveals the truth of our human condition - in all its contradictions and confusion, its potential and beauty. Light shines in the darkness - attracting us back to the truth of love.

The Baptism of Christ with Dove - Daniel Bonnell

The Life:  The way, truth and life of Jesus is to reconcile all things in love. That is our ultimate reality.  In laying down his life for us, Jesus goes to the depths of the grave and reveals the power of the resurrection. It is perhaps this image of baptism that speaks also of the power of this new life.

We see in Stephen the embrace of this new life.  Like him, may our hearts be set on the world to come; like him, may we sow seeds of new life on earth. Stephen has become a story teller: it’s a story with Jesus at its centre; a story of God, the great I AM, in the midst of all things - past, present and future. In the moment we heard today, Stephen is able to witness to the way, the truth and the life; he is enfolded by the Spirit. As he speaks the Spirit speaks; he point us to the love of God revealed in Jesus. 

Let not your hearts be troubled; I have prepared a place for you; I am the way, the truth and the life. Those things are about love: consoling, reimagining, embracing, convicting, cherishing. 

Stephen has found his way to the truth of this love; and through his life, so will Saul. That figure, lurking in the shadows of hatred will become that great witness, Paul.

Our human bodies reflect something of this way of life. Jesus taught his disciples to love. God’s Spirit is at work in us - when we show compassion and kindness, when we show hospitality and friendship. We are to walk this way; embrace this truth; discover this new life. We are called - like Stephen and Saul, Thomas and Philip.

For a long time, Christian Aid has adopted the slogan: we believe in life before death.  Like Stephen may we perform with grace and power the story of  Jesus.  This Christian Aid week may our gestures reveal the divine life made flesh. 

Heart of God - Gary Rowell

©  Julie Gittoes 2020

Radicals and visionaries

A sermon preached on Sunday 15 September at the St Mary's/Christ Church Eucharists. Having been inspired by the William Blake exhibition, the themes of being radicals/visionaries seemed apt as a way of thinking afresh about lost sheep/coins. 

The readings were: Exodus 32.7-14; Psalm 51.1-11; 1 Timothy 1.12-17; Luke 15.1-10

Rebel.

Radical.

Revolutionary 

The three words used by the Tate to describe William Blake the printmaker, painter and poet.

The visionary artist whose work projected the hopes and fears of his own age.

Projected them, not on large canvases; but concentrated them in little small pages.

Printed. Hand coloured. 

You have to look closely at these little images.

Mysterious; terrifying; radiant; weird;

As we are drawn into his world, do we see ours afresh?

As one critic puts it: ‘His symbols blaze with truth. These are images that look death and suffering in the eye and still believe in a redeemed humanity, a Glad Day’.

Blake saw the worst and best of our human condition.

His wife Catherine once said: ‘I have very little of Mr Blake’s company; he is always in Paradise’.

This Paradise was often turbulent such was his sensitivity to the callousness and injustice of the world.

And yet, that turbulence leads to a restless questing after a glimmer of hope; or a trace of grace.

In a sense, the more you look at Blake’s images, we see ourselves as both lost and found.

We carry the marks and anxieties of experience; we long for the joy and divine security of innocence.

We live in the bustling, vibrant, consuming city which inspired Blake, in which he struggled for survival. We know the fierce, burning brightness of the Tyger and the soft, tender meekness of the Lamb. 

Both made and loved; lost and found. 

Today we hear Jesus tell two stories about things that are lost - either in the wilderness or in a house. These things have value and are sought out by the shepherd and the woman - who evolve into symbols of Jesus; revealing the depth of God’s love in redeeming or restoring or finding us.

What might if feel like for us to know that God’s love reaches out to each individual?  Does it strengthen or weaken the group? 

One of the wisest writers on the parables, the late Kenneth Bailey, helps us see these stories through the lens of Middle-Eastern eyes.  He shows how Jesus inhabits the Hebrew tradition and reshapes it in relation to who he is as God’s beloved Son.

Bailey writes: “If the one [sheep] is sacrificed in the name of the larger group, then each individual in the group is insecure, knowing that he or she is of little value. If lost, he or she will be left to die. When the shepherd pays a high price to find the one, he thereby offers the profoundest security to the many”.

It is good news for all that one is found; it is a source of human and heavenly joy that the lost is love; we become more complete, more whole, when another is beloved.

Bailey sees in the stories about sheep and coins a cluster of theological ideas: the nature of leadership within community and the abundant gift of grace offered to the rescued one; the cost to the shepherd of finding and restoring that one to its place or home.

There is an acknowledgement of what happens when humanity is lost - and unable to find its way home. The isolation and fear, the hurt and fragmentation. What in short hand we call ‘sin’ - our separation from God and others. 

Yet rather than being despairing, there’s much joy and celebration in these stories. Our repentance is imagined as an acceptance of being found - of being carried when we are lost and helpless. 

The images of these stories invite us to imagine ourselves within them. Like Blake’s paintings, they blaze with truth; they look suffering in the face - and also reveal the glad day of redeemed humanity.

This is about us as individuals, yes; but it is also about the life of the community. It speaks of God’s self-giving love rippling through the wilderness until we are brought home. Neither the one nor the many are abandoned. Jesus is talking about himself as well as us. He is the one who demonstrates costly love in the turbulence of our world to bring us to new life.

The story of the woman and her coins deepens the meaning of these themes: there is a shining light and diligent searching; we see the cracks in the floor, the dirty, grimy corners; and there is joy at being found and restored.

A sheep might become sick or injured when it is lost; there might be hurt or scarring. And yet the coin reminds us that we lose nothing of our value, our worth or our dignity for having been lost. The choice of Jesus’ imagery also elevates the world of all women. 

In addition, whereas the shepherd must search a vast wilderness, the woman knows that the coin is in the house. We are assured that the lost will be found because the coin is definitely in the house.

This work of reconciling humanity to God’s very self, God’s heart of love, is refracted in our other readings. In vivid and personal terms, they reveal the impact of our impatient, unjust or selfish desires; but also reassure us that those things are not the end of the story.

In Exodus, we hear of the ‘stiff-necked’ people who decide to melt down their precious metal to turn their tangible wealth into a tangible idol: they contain and limit their vision of god by producing ‘a thing’; an object within their control. 

Their anxiety echoes in our lives and our world - in Blake’s depiction of the worst of our human condition - when we place our security in what we can do, in our wealth, our ambition or ability. Our trust in God wavers in the turbulence of the world; we forget God’s blessings;  and seek out dark corners away from the light.

Whatever the vagaries of the human heart, God’s love for us remains constant: this love is fierce and faithful; just and merciful. Such love names the ways in which stray like lost sheep; but also reminds us that we are lambs called by name.

God knows that we need to constantly rediscover and relearn the truth that blazes deep within us. God rebukes and forgives precisely in order that we might grow in wisdom; God’s acts of justice call us to a more radical way of life.  

We are sought after, rescued, carried and redeemed in order that we might witness to the good news that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Godself. 

This love is not abstract. It is revealed once and for all in Jesus Christ. When he was lifted up on the cross, looking suffering in the face; and when he lay in the depths of the grave, overcoming death; when he burst from the tomb, revealing the radiance of light divine and the hope of redeemed humanity.

This love is not abstract. It is revealed in transformed lives and in the stories we tell. Paul’s story is one such act of testimony.  He writes to the young man Timothy of his own journey. He was lost - dawn to violence and injustice. He was found in the blazing light of the risen Christ. He was carried in this overflowing love.

That experience of patience and mercy becomes a song of praise to God who is immortal and invisible. Today we share that praise as we are invited to see ourselves afresh as worthy of full acceptance. 

Jesus came into the world to save us; to bring healing and hope. In bread and wine, we touch and taste the grace of God’s love. Receiving those gifts, we become what we are: members of one body. We are rooted and in a true sense radicals. Visionaries for God’s Kingdom; concentrating the light of God’s truth in each gesture.  In the power of the Spirit we are sent to be agents of hope, compassion and blessing.

Almighty God,

you search us out and know us:

may we rely on you in strength

and rest on you weakness,

now and infall our days;

though Jesus Christ our Lord.

© Julie Gittoes 2019

Writing about humanity

A sermon from Evensong 1 September: Isaiah 33:13-22 and John 3:22-36

Writing in one of today’s papers, Johanna Thomas-Corr writes: ‘The hoopla around the lunch of Margaret Atwood’s The Testaments is more reminiscent of the unveiling of an iPhone or something Pokémon related that that of a mere book’.

The Testaments is the long awaited sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale: a dystopian novel which has gained a new audience as a restful of its Emmy award winning TV adaptation. It’s the most borrowed book from London libraries; sales have increased 160% since the title of its swap was revealed. 

It tells of ecological disaster; the dismantling of democracy; the erosion of women’s rights. It was chilling when it was published 34 years ago; now the red-clocked handmaidens with their white bonnets stand as a symbol of women’s resistance. 

There’s something prophetic about Atwood’s work: she’s described as being before her time but perhaps that’s precisely because she’s so attuned to the dynamics and pressures of the world we live in. As Thomas-Corr’s profile peace puts it: ‘if there’s something that interests her about humanity, she’ll write about it.'

Isaiah, as we’ve noted in recent weeks, is also alert to the dynamics and pressures of his own world. He notes the way power shifts and discerns where false hopes lie. He calls out the lies and smooth words. He names those things which are illusory or which will lead to death and destruction. 

Yes, he is interested in humanity; but that’s not all he speaks and writes about. 

He speaks about humanity in relation to the world - but that is shaped by his primary commitment to the words and commandments of God.

He names the ways of the godless: the evil doers; the reckless; and the sinful: who despise the call to justice and mercy.

He names the ways of the righteous: those who aren’t susceptible to bribes; who do not profit from oppression; who speak of what is right and hesitance themselves from evil.

He names the ways of the Lord: who will judge and rule and save; whose majesty is to be acknowledged; who commandments are to be understood.

Jerusalem is to be the quiet habitation of the Lord: restored and rebuilt that God’s people might be healed and built up.

Isaiah spoke in later chapters of God’s messiah; the suffering servant. It is this one, chosen and beloved, who will dwell with us in the habitation of our flesh.

John the Baptist was interested in the stuff of humanity: naming our need to turn to God; to find hope, forgiveness and a new beginning.

John also names the stuff of God: knowing that he was not the Messiah, but the one going ahead to prepare the way. The one who captured imaginations, aroused curiosity and made our hearts and mind receptive to the Lord’s beloved Son.

His joy was fulfilled when he sees his beloved cousin on the banks for the Jordan: he baptised him in solidarity with the fragility and potential of our human condition. 

He beholds him afresh today: knowing that he must decrease for God’s Son to increase. He points others to him. 

He points to this one who is above all; who abides with the Father.

He points to this one who knows the earth; who is flesh of our flesh.

He points to this one who will give the Spirit measure upon measure.

This is our Lord.

The Word who gives voice to our hopes and our salvation.

This Word is beloved of the Father.

Humanity is of interest to this Word.

Our Lord sees us and loves us.

We abide in the hands of this one.

In ecology, democracy and feminism: the words of the Word challenge us.

Our Lord calls us to obedient love.

Moment by moment, this love calls us to live lightly and intensely.

Calling us to speak and to act: for the sake of the eco-systems of which we’re apart; for the sake of our social and political life; for the sake of the equitable treatment of women and men.

This Word is heaven touching earth; and raising earth to heaven.

His Spirit leads us to echo the prophetic cries for mercy, justice and truth.

That we too may give word to that which builds up and renews.

We do so in the assurance that in this Word of love, even death is but the beginning of life.

© Julie Gittoes 2019