The crest of a wave

Third Sunday before Advent: Isaiah 35: 1-10, James 5:7-10 and Matthew 11:2-11

We could begin today with reference to ballot boxes and glitter balls: of votes cast for parliamentarians or celebrities on Strictly. 

But instead, let us go to a burial ground just three miles from here  at Hampstead Parish Church,. There we will find a grave bearing the inscription ‘here lies H Stuart Moore… and his wife Evelyn’. 

Then in brackets, we read ‘daughter of Sir Arthur Underhill’. 

This woman, remembered her as wife and daughter, is actually known to us Evelyn Underhill: Christian, scholar and spiritual guide.

In the midst of the upheavals of the early twentieth-century, she was a prolific and influential writer, broadcaster and retreat conductor. Her quest for God led her to communicate - in ‘plain and untechnical language’ - how mean and women might participate in and experience the love extended by God to every human being.

In a little book on the Lord’s Prayer, she wrote this: ‘Christ announced the one and only purpose of His ministry to be the bringing in of the Kingdom of God; by the quiet action of a flawless love giving back to our lost tormented planet its place in the orchestra of heaven’.

That is an extraordinary and powerful vision: it is a vision which takes us to the very heart of the readings we have heard today. 

It is a vision which acknowledges the a deeper reality than that which we glimpse in news paper headlines and Twitter feeds.

It is a vision which invites us to embrace with she calls ‘the wide-spreading love transfiguring the whole texture of life’.

It is a vision which makes reality and hope more real.

In the midst of political upheaval and personal anxieties; in the midst of the creativity and joy, untidiness and complexity of our lives;  in the midst of the uncertainty of life and the certainty of death: we are called to prepare the highway for such a kingdom.

Today we recall one who did indeed prepare such a way. John the Baptist appears in the wilderness as a disruptive and unsettling voice; his dress is strange; his diet unappetising. And yet people folk to him to hear a message of judgement and hope. 

In preparing the way, he points beyond himself.

In preparing the way, he extends an invitation to place god at the centre of our lives. 

But the John we encounter in today is not the solitary yet charismatic figure proclaiming his message in the open spaces of the desert. 

The John we encounter today is a voice crying out from the confined space of a prison cell.

His witness cost him his liberty because King Herod would not tolerate John’s sharp critique of his abuse of power in personal and public life.

Imprisonment may have silenced his voice but it has not quenched his hope.

He speaks out of his curiosity and longing, isolation and expectation.

Are you the one? he asks, or must I wait patiently for another.

Jesus' response is ambiguous.  He doesn't say 'yes' or 'no'.

Instead he sends John's disciples back with stories.  He asks them to report to John about all that they have seen and heard. 

John has to work at making the connections and piece things together.

As Underhill also acknowledged: we aren’t given definitions or policies for the kingdom.  Instead we are given pictures and stories.

What John hears, are words the prophet Isaiah being fulfilled.

Jesus turns hope into reality.

He invites us to see beyond the signs to embrace a time of renewal.

He points to sight and hearing; to movement and life; to the power of the good news to liberate.

Sitting alone and in darkness, John hears that hope and wholeness is being poured out on those who are troubled, broken hearted and marginalised.

The very Kingdom he had made space for, is breaking in.

Today, some of us may feel that, like John: either that we are sitting a dark place; feeling fearful and despondent; or feeling that we are still waiting patiently for renewal; or indeed sensing a glimpse of new possibilities.

Wherever we find ourselves on that spectrum, we are all challenged to hold on to the vision of God’s Kingdom: committing ourselves courageously to bringing hope to others; showing determination in speaking out for compassion and justice; holding power to account and strengthing networks of friendship in out communities.

Isaiah’s words were written at a time of exile - when God’s people were far from home, literally and spiritually. 

In that place of uncertainty, the prophet speaks of God’s faithfulness. God will strengthen hearts and minds, hands and knees when we are weary and fearful.

As we draw on this strength we are to seek to reach out to the weary and fearful.

As Underhill puts it: ‘to look with real desire for the coming of the Kingdom means crossing over to God’s side; dedicating our powers, whatever they may be, to the triumph of His purpose’.  

We are to dedicate our time, money and position to the service of this kingdom. This is a call to distinctiveness - rooted in prayer and flowing out in active service. It might be the call to advocacy for the weak or the call of accountability to the powerful. 

As Jesus acknowledges that people didn't flock to the wilderness to see the expected - reeds blowing in the wind; a person blending into the background. Nor did they flock to someone robed in finery and the trappings of this world.  Rather they found someone who had a consistent character.  Someone full of conviction; someone utterly committed to the ways of God.  

John looks forwards to the fulfilment of God's kingdom, embodied and given meaning by Jesus.  We too are called to be people who speak and act for freedom and justice; for a world made whole; never ceasing to speak out for what is true; naming all that devalues and exploits; and pointing to another way.  This is a commitment to radical reform; reform which is rooted in the work of the Holy Spirit in us.

Isaiah gives us a remarkable range of images for this kingdom: parched desert land becomes fruitful; blossoms appear with abundance and there is joy and singing; the glory and majesty of earthy dominions pale in significance with the glory and majesty of  God's reign.  

We hear words of comfort and courage to those who are weak and fearful; we are assured of God's faithfulness to us.  God is not indifferent to our human cries - but his recompense is transformative.  Jesus identifies himself as the one who brings healing and salvation by echoing Isaiah's expression of hope.

Underhill is under no illusion that a programme which challenges oppression and inequality demands much of us: such faith and hope and charity and much courage too. 

Elsewhere in James’ letter, he places emphasis on works of justice and charity as the fruit of faith; he also condemns a culture of deference to the rich and powerful. He also advises the church to be prepared to watch and wait. This is not a call to indifference; but it does give us a fresh perspective on time. In the current age, we are to seek justice in awareness that God will come in glory to bring judgement. 

The one who comes to be our judge is the one who has taken flesh of our flesh. Here at the Eucharist God’s Spirit is poured out on ordinary bread and wine, things of sustenance and joy; they become Christ's body and blood; and we who extend our hands to receive them become  God's people. 

Underhill describes the Eucharist as ‘the crest of a great wave; a total sacramental disclosure of the dealings of the Transcendent God’ with human beings. It is the crest of a wave, as the culmination of the meals Jesus shared and the food he gave; as he makes himself known in broken bread. 

But waves break and burst out along the shoreline. We who share this bread are to be that wave  giving concrete and social expression to the vision of God’s Kingdom we glimpse each Eucharist. When the mass is ended, let us go to seek justice with mercy; hope with realism; joy with friendship; generosity with responsibility.  Amen. 

© Julie Gittoes 2019

Living tree stumps

Advent Two Isaiah 11.1-10, Romans 15.4-13 and Matthew 3.1-12

Each year, hundreds of trees are nominated for the  Woodland Trust’s Tree of the Year contest: a contest which celebrates special trees and the stories behind them.

Out of a list including an ancient yew, a tree surviving on the north circular, and a sycamore growing on top of Colchester Castle, Liverpool’s Allerton Oak won was crowned England’s winner.

Many of these trees reflect nature’s tenacity for life - such as the fallen tree in Richmond Park. Having been blown over in a great storm, this particular oak now lies on the horizontal; its last remaining roots enabling it to flourish with it branches reaching upwards from one side of the trunk.

Even more striking, especially given today’s reading from Isaiah, is research being done on living tree stumps. 

July’s Economist described such survivors as the ‘arboreal undead’ continuing with a ‘zombie-like existence’ for decades without either a trunk or foliage. 

The article reports scientific research carried on one such stump in New Zealand: in the depts of a  forest, a stump keeps live by holding onto the roots of neighbouring trees. This grafted root system allows water and resources to be exchanged. 

Trees survive as part of this super-organism.

In Isaiah, we hear that new growth will spring up from the stump of the tree of Jesse. The house and tribe of Jesse may appear to be dead; but it will rise again. It is part of a wider ecosystem. 

God is at work.  

Hope is springing up.

There will be new growth, a new branch, a new shoot.

Such an image is at the heart of this Advent season.

We are to be encouraged and to persevere because God has promised to make all things new.

That which appears irreparably damage will be restored.

The harm caused by our selfishness and lack of love will be renewed.

The language of Advent isn’t soothing or pious or stoical.

It goes to the very depths of the trials and injustices of our world. And there, in the place, when all seems lifeless, there is new hope.

All that is damaged is brought to light, judged and made new.

We find comfort in this: in restoration, justice and peace.

Today, we remember in particular the witness of the prophets: those who, like Isaiah, described the consequences of human life lived apart from the commandments to love.

Isaiah along with Micah, Amos and Jeremiah continually cry out for justice and mercy; they remind God’s people of the demands of the most vulnerable; they hold the powerful to account and call out exploitation.

Just as individual trees survive within a super-organism where water and resources are exchanged, so are we grafted into an ecosystem of interdependence. 

This is a vision of God’s Kingdom: a new shoot reveals the tenacity of God’s gift of life and hope; a new branch expresses the way power protects and raises up. As the prophet writes, ‘with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth’.

What Isaiah is described is not simply a renewed earthly kingdom. However wise and mighty, no ruler can accomplish the fullness of this vision.

Instead, Isaiah is presenting us with something cosmic: a vision of reconciliation that cannot be brought about by human effort and goodwill alone. it is a vision of a world transformed and renewed through the power and gift of God.

God is determined to fulfil this pledge of new life and restoration, justice and peace. God is determined to reconcile all things to Godself - choosing to come among as Word made flesh.

We need to prepare our hearts and minds for that celebration. In the words of today’s collect, ‘O Lord, raise up, we pray, your power and come among us’.

Part of that preparation is through the witness of John the Baptist: he appears in the wilderness, part of the ancient lineage of prophets. 

Like Isaiah and those who have gone before him, he urges people to repent: hat is to turn back to God’s ways of love; to choose life.

This act of turning or returning is not simply a matter for the individual: it is about building a life together which reflects God’s justice and mercy; it is about establishing those bond of mutual support; it echoes the prophetic cry for righteousness and equity.

Just like our forest ecosystem, there is a level of interdependence; but fundamentally we our nourished - or succoured - by the power of God.

John’s words are hopeful: inviting us to be so rooted and grafted in God’s love that we might restored; and having been revived by the gift of grace, that we too might make possible God’s justice, bringing to others life and hope.

John’s words are also challenging: he speaks of an axe lying at the root of the trees. Our human spheres of life and activity will fall under God’s judgement; human spheres of leadership, the religious, political, social and economic, will also be tested against God’s measure of righteousness.

Following the words and examples of John and the prophets before him, we are to take a stand against corruption, lies, abuse and decadence. Instead, we are to be fruitful in seeking to bind up and heal; restore hope and bring mercy.

Over the coming weeks, we will be reminded that this message of hope and deliverance will not be found in grand palaces or centres of political power. The one who comes as flesh of our flesh, as Word dwelling amongst us, this king will be born into obscurity and humility. 

In him, the hopes of the prophets are fulfilled. We live in the light of such hope - allowing it to shape our life together: shaping our homes, churches and all that makes up our common life. Dare we say, may our social, economic and political life also echo Christ’s reign. 

Paul writes to the Romans of the way in which we are grafted onto this tree of God’s kingdom: and two we are to reveal the fruit of that in our lives.

If the sap of God’s kingdom is coursing through our networks, then we are indeed to welcome others, just as we have been made welcome by God through Christ.

At the heart of this, is the table fellowship that we share. As we break bread together, our common life reveals something of the equity and mercy, hope and love of God’s kingdom.

As we eat together, we face our problems and share our burdens; we find comfort and wisdom; solidarity and joy. 

As we eat together, we learn how to love and serve each other with humility and care.  Here rich and poor, young and old are made welcome. Here markers of our social status and class are overcome. Here, whatever our native tongue or martial status, we are one. Irrespective of gender or health, sexuality or occupation we are invited to eat together.

Here in broken bread, our behaviour and character are shaped not by the values and priorities of this world; but by the friendship of God’s Kingdom.

In broken bread there is hope and challenge. For here, the advent of our Lord is fulfilled. Jesus Christ, is here bringing justice and righteousness.  As his Church, as his body, may our lives and relationships be so transformed that our world - with all its struggles and upheavals might glimpse , God’s peaceable Kingdom our life together.

© Julie Gittoes 2019

They will walk behind the ploughshare

A sermon preached on Advent Sunday. Isaiah's words about swords and ploughshares have become iconic. I was stuck by the finale of Les Mis - and by the important work of the Institute for Criminology in Cambridge - in the risk of grace and rehabilitation. The texts were Isaiah 2.1-5; Romans 13.11-end; Matthew 24.36-44

In a few weeks time, a season of waiting will come to an end.

There will be dazzling lights and heartfelt song.

In mid-December, Les Mis reopens at the Sondheim Theatre in the West End.

The tunes: they get us right here.

They tug at us: from 'I dreamed a dream! 'to 'Do you hear the people sing?'

Translating Hugo Victor’s epic novel into musical theatre, draws us into a revolution of the past. 

Through song we are drawn into the struggle of the poor getting older and colder; we grapple with law and grace.

That struggle is framed around how to restore order and harmony: the struggle between the idealist revolutionary uprising and the conservative stability of the state.

Both see political power as  means to accomplish God’s justice and harmony; both seek to violently take charge of the world in order for God’s Kingdom to come.

Les Mis is also shot through with love, grace and mercy.  These things can’t be reduced to politics, law enforcement or economics.

Perhaps it’s the character of Valjean who helps us most vividly navigate a way though the violence of judgement and idealism. It’s through him that the plight of the poor - Les Misérables - becomes personal, rather than abstract.

Valjean’s first experience of grace is when the pries gives back to him the candlesticks he’s stolen. That one act of mercy saves him. The thief is forgiven; he experiences kindness; he sees the world differently. He is restored. 

Valjean’s second experience of grace is when he - now a factory owner and mayor - faces his own complicity with the fate of Fantine: her story is one of exploitation; her song is heartbreakingly and soul-crushingly tragic. 

In his response to Fantine and Cosette, we see Valjean himself become a channel of the grace, mercy and kindness he’d received himself.

In some way, we might see Les Mis as the archetypal Advent musical. For at its heart is the cry for justice; and such a cry is the thread running through this season.

As we light candles week by week, we are laying claim to the hope of our ancestors in the faith; the prophetic cries for peace and; the joy and love of those who point us to a wordless infant who is God with us.

Our Advent cry perhaps echoes the finale of Les Mis:

They will live again in freedom

In the garden of the Lord.

They will walk behind the ploughshare,

They will put away the sword.

The musical puts on the lips of the chorus the cry of the prophet. 

It is a cry that expresses our desire to bring an end to war and injustice; a cry that invites to look at the world around us; to examine our hearts; to name the inconsistencies.

At the very beginning of Isaiah’s witness, this is what he talks about.  He brings into the present this future hope; the ultimate decommissioning of weapons. Swords and spear are put beyond use. The means of mass destruction become the means of food production. 

"Swords into ploughshares..." - Wall at Raoul Wallenberg Place, near the United Nations Headquarters, New York City

The worlds of Valjean and of Isaiah share with us this concern for justice and peace.

Their worlds are marked by criminality and corruption; exploitation and privilege; by judgements and governance that are always imperfect and sometimes unjust.

But these things breed mistrust and fear. Isaiah cries out to a people who’ve drifted away from their first love: who’ve neglected God and God’s ways of mercy and justice. 

Isaiah’s cry calls them back to God and invites them to relearn God’s ways, to walk a different path - placing one step in from of the other. 

This Kingdom is coming, but it is not here yet. We seek it; struggle for it; glimpse it; build it.

And that is why we need to remain alert; so that we can be prepared; and not taken by surprise.

Today we light the first our of our Advent candles: a glimmer of light which reminds us of the hope of the Kingdom where no one is left behind to grow older and colder; where all are made welcome; where human concerns for status, power and wealth melt away before God’s justice.

Jesus’ words in today’s Gospel both alarm us and give us hope.  The task of the disciple is not to predict the ‘end times’. Instead our task is to live by faith - that means refusing to live by fear and embracing life lived in loving obedience to God. Just like Isaiah and Paul, we are in this for the long haul. 

How do we live in these bewildering and uncertain times?

By faithfully embodying the love of God; witnessing, in the power of the Spirit, to that love made manifest in the humility of Jesus. 

But what of Jesus’ words about division, separation and the brutal disruption of daily life?

It’s by use of dramatic and apocalyptic language that Jesus seeks to convert the urgency of the situation and the demands of the challenge he presents to us.  We are called to be ready and prepared; we do not know how much time is left to us here on earth. We are to use the time that we have to an active waiting on God, which makes hope possible. 

All this is summed up in the imperative: keep awake!

We come to Jesus in the hope that he’ll rouse us from sleep: that our hearts might be directed to God in worship; that the Spirit might kindle in our hearts the fire of love; that our wills and desires might be directed to ways of peace.

Perhaps we find in Paul’s letter to the Romans a particularly timely reminder for how to live in the face of upheaval. He asserts that in Christ there has been the ultimate regime change from darkness to light; from night until day. Therefore he urges us to be prepared both inwardly and outwardly. 

If we are alert to the nearness of God, if we live in his light. To live in light means that we lay aside the need to gratify temporal desires; jealously, quarrelling and the revelling are distractions.   

To live in light means being alert to the risks we take for justice and peace in our own generation.  Some of that risk taking for the sake of others was evident on Friday afternoon - as two men used a fire extinguisher and narwhal tusk. 

But it was also evident on Friday afternoon in the work that the Cambridge Institute for Criminology is doing as a force for good in seeking to rehabilitate offenders. Jack Merritt lost his life was part of this project - a 21st century version, perhaps, of Valjean being given the candlesticks as an act of grace and mercy.

Jack's father said: ‘Cambridge has lost a proud son and a champion for underdogs everywhere, but especially those... who ended up in the prison system’. The pursuit of justice and mercy is a matter of the personal as well as the policy.

The Eucharist in which we share, restores our hope in God’s kingdom. We hear of God’s work of creation and redemption; of love which patiently reaches out to us in love. Here we come to the one who is to come; here we lament and repent; here we are forgiven and sent out.

Here receive what we are, and become what we receive: the Body of Christ. And bodies live and move and breath and act in the world.  

We are a body called to both hope and patience - in world which is often devoid of the former and which has no time for the latter. 

And yet, our song is of a hope of restoration, of peace and of justice:

They will live again in freedom

In the garden of the Lord.

They will walk behind the ploughshare,

They will put away the sword.

© Julie Gittoes 2019

Hope is power

Jeremiah 23:1-6, Colossians 1:11-20 and Luke 23:33-43

Finally, after months of trailers and ubiquitous adverts, The Crown is back for its third season: apparently, the first episode takes exactly one minute and 20 seconds to show us a corgi, which [according to one commentator] is one minutes and 19 seconds too long. Something she’ll forgive because of Olivia Colman.

The words from the lips of Colman’s Queen Elizabeth are:  “Old bat”, spoken as she inspects a new portrait of herself to be used on postage stamps. This austere profile, is designed to convey a sense of majesty, marked the queen’s transition from a young princess to a settled monarch. 

It's 1964, and in the words of Bob Dylan’s song of that same year: the times they are a-changin. 

A General Election is underway. Winston Churchill dies. There’s a a new Prime Minister. There are rumours of Russian interference and of a KGM spy at the heart of the establishment. Beneath the glamour and weight of responsibility  there are scandalous shadows of the Profumo Affair. There are discussions of trust and character, of fabrications and truth.

And in this drama, lavishly blending together fact and imagination, the complicated dynamics of power and privilege, service and duty are woven are played out. They casts light on the world we inhabit: the contradictions and struggles of times which are a-changin’. It could well be 2019 as much as 1964.

Today, as we celebrate Christ the King - the feast of title of this church - the images of thrones and crowns, royalty and power are cast in a different light. 

This feast emerged in the Roman Catholic Church in the wake of the devastation of the Great War: it was in a sense a warning about the ways in which human authority could be both seductive and destructive. It was an attempt to place at the heart of public life the principle that Jesus Christ is the only King.

In the words of our opening prayer: Christ’s kingship is about peace and unity; it’s about enthroning Christ as Lord of our lives; it’s about drawing the whole of creation into the life of worship.

Jeremiah has sharp words for those who are entrusted with positions of leadership. The prophet calls out behaviour which is self-serving; and promises instead to raise up a new king. The Lord of righteousness will come with wisdom and justice, ensuring safety of God’s people.

That Lord doesn’t reign from a throne or palace or parliament: instead our Lord reigns with us in human flesh. God is with us in Jesus reigning in a manger; ruling amidst the messiness of our lives, leading us into God’s kingdom of justice, mercy, compassion and peace.

Today we see the reign of love from the very depths of human sorrow and pain. 

The Three Crosses Rembrandt, 1653

Today we are invited to gaze upon the face of the one who is our Lord: like those in our gospel, we look, and see and respond. 

The inscription over Jesus’ cross is clear: This is the King of the Jews.

It’s an inscription which provokes challenge and questions; silence and indifference. 

Some stood by watching. They keep their distance. 

Some stood by, gambling: casting lists for his clothes.

Some looked on, scoffing: from the position of their own religious leadership, waiting for a sign; for the ultimate miracle.

Soldiers looked on, mocking him. If you are the king, they ask, use power in the way we understand; use it to save yourself;

A criminal looked on: deriding him. Crying out with that same questioning ‘if’; If you are God’s chosen - do something to set me free.

Three ‘ifs’ echoing the temptations of the wilderness: temptations to use power for selfish ends, to impress others or to collude with the ways of the world. 

But there’s another voice. The second criminal. And when he speaks, he sees a different kind of glory and power; he sees victory where there is shame; hope where there is loss.  

He speaks out: ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’

For although our own mistakes and misdeeds are evident, God in Jesus comes to that place of humiliation and shame and brings the gift of mercy and forgiveness.

So often we are caught up in the regrets and stories of our past that we get stuck there.

Or we get so caught up in our own plans for the future, that we are ensnared by mere wishes.

What we do have is this present moment: and there, as he confronts death, this criminal teaches us what really matters. 

A sermon preached at the joint service for Christ the King - celebrating the feast of title at Christ Church. An amazing service - gathering to break bread in worship and break bread in fellowship - expressing what it means to be two  churches and one parish.

Today in the present moment we hear, those precious words of promise: the promise of paradise. This is a moment of hope.

We are invited to embrace this hope.

We embrace this hope as we take into our hands the body of Christ: in the wafer thin fragility of broken bread, we encounter the depth of love and the promise of new life.

As we hear in Colossians: this is what makes us strong; this is the source of our patience and joy. 

The one who is the image of the invisible God; the firstborn of all creation; show holds all things together. This one is with us.

This God has rescued us from the power of darkness; from all those things which distort power and which corrupt love. 

Jeremiah challenges us about the way we exercise leadership: in our homes and in our schools, in our churches and our workplaces, in public service and in our acts of charity.

We are called to bring people together rather than to scatter them; to enable them to flourish in safety rather than leaving them fearful.  

For us, as much as for Dylan, we can be sure that times they are a-changin’. The challenge and invitation is for us as Christians to be confidence and faithful in our witness - calling power to account, yes; but also reflecting the fullness of life and love God promises us now, though the power of the Spirit. 

Perhaps we can reclaim the new slogan adopted by the Guardian: change is possible; hope is power.

That hope is in Christ: so let us celebrate this feast. Rising to challenge of sharing the fullness of love; and the hope of peace and reconciliation. 

Change is possible; hope is power.

He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.

Change is possible. Christ is king. Hope is our power.

© Julie Gittoes 2019

Kaleidoscopic colour

A sermon preached on the Second before Advent - having been moved by Eliasson's exhibition at the Tate Modern and how his work makes us aware of our bodies and our place in the world, reading Jesus' warnings in Luke's Gospel resonated differently.   The texts were Malachi 4:1-2a, 2 Thessalonians 3:6-13, Luke 21:5-19

Is it possible that art can change the world?

The Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson thinks so.

He’s reputation is based on playing with our senses: he creates work of beauty - giant kaleidoscopes shedding colourful patterns on the wall; light installations which turn our bodies into a playful shadow displays.

He creates work which brings the natural world inside: the delicate beauty of fine mist falling, gently, as light casts a rainbow; the trepidation of stepping into a corridor of dense fog, seeing nothing ahead but being enfolded with a dazzling light shifting from yellow to pink and white.

But as one reviewer puts it: there is more to Eliasson’s work than cheap thrills and damp air.  

By drawing  on nature and creating multi-sensory phenomenon, he makes us aware of our bodies; but he also makes us alert to our place on this planet; his expanded studio addresses the questions facing us - renewable energy, climate justice, migration and melting glaciers. 

Eliasson’s work might be described as ‘sublime’: that is the utterly awe-inspiring point where beauty, wonder, fear and vulnerability meet. 

As Rosemary Waugh puts it in Time Out magazine: he captures power and beauty and humanity for one reason, that is: to make it explicitly clear that THIS – this glorious, miraculous planet with its winds, rains and rocks – is precisely what we’re systematically destroying by letting it melt, crack and fall apart. This is epic environmentalism and, yes, it’s sublime.

In Real Life, we become agents in answering the question: how do we live together?

How do we live together when we don’t know what the future holds for humankind? 

In today’s Gospel, we some were speaking admiringly of the beauty of the temple stones - their majestic proportions, hewn from the earth, carved by human hands, reflecting the light.

And Jesus’ response makes us acutely aware of our bodies, our senses, our place in the world: it is a moment of beauty, wonder, fear and vulnerability.

In that moment, Jesus addresses the way in which human history opens up before us. Each generation facing its crises as nations, empires and kingdoms rise and fall; as environmental upheavals loom and the cosmos brings forth its own portents.

Human agency participates in and magnifies this disorder; and yet we strive for peace; we’re motivated to respond to disaster with generosity. The shorthand for this time between Jesus’ proclamation of the nearness of God’s Kingdom and its fulfilment or consumption is ‘now and not-yet’.

We live in this realm of in-between times as the disciples did: Jesus speaks words which are discomforting to our ears. He names the human tendency to seek power. 

First many will attempt to lead followers astray by falsely claiming his name; second, the powers of earthly kingdoms will rise against each other with violence; third, the church will be hated because of his name. 

In short, Jesus is saying that the good news he shares of healing, hope, liberation and forgiveness will stand in contradiction to the idols of possession, exploitation, abuse and greed of every age. 

This takes us to the heart of spiritual conflict: Jesus is God’s Word made flesh, the truth that brings light into darkness. In him, the love of God draws near to us; naming all that diminishes - the idleness, indifference and selfishness. 

As children of God, Jesus reassures us that the works of darkness have no power over us. we are to resist them by placing our trust in the peace Christ brings; allowing that to shape our lives and our witness. 

Such resistance is courageous. It means that we must cultivate habits of self-discipline and endurance. 

First, we are not to be distracted by false teaching; those things which suggest there’s an easier way than that of costly love. Second, we are to stand firm as worldly powers exert their influence and kingdoms clash with each other. Thirdly, we must be remain faithful to our witness - even when friends and family disagree or turn against us.

In short, Jesus is saying that we must not lose our focus: to pray for peace and reconciliation, for justice and mercy. We are to use whatever gifts and resources we have to aid others in that struggle; to come alongside them to raise them up and give them dignity.

We can commit ourselves to that struggle in the knowledge that Jesus has already defeated suffering and death; love has won. As members of Christ’s body, any resistance or hope we offer is through his grace; and change we effect is through his power.

The epistle also speaks in robust terms about the need for such self-discipline. Paul’s naming of idleness implies a senes of living in disorder. The notion of being busybodies suggests that he’s concerned with those who are intent on meddling in the affairs of others; those who like to give the impression of being kind-hearted, but in reality offer little meaningful aid or support. 

To reframe the challenge of Eliasson’s interactive exhibition, how do we live together? It is in part by not growing wearing of doing what is right - however much other factors appear to conspire against us. 

When if feels as if all is melting, cracking and falling apart, our worship engages us with our senses, reconnects us with the natural world and makes us more aware of our bodies.

Throughout our liturgy we are reminded that our identity is in Christ: we seek forgiveness and share in peace. It is when the fruit of the vine and the work of human hands are taken and blessed, broken and given to us that we, are nourished as this one body. 

Though we are many, and though we will be sent out to live and work in many homes and places, we are united.  Though we are many our hearts are shaped by one love. Can the gift of this sacrament change the world? I believe so.

We are called to be people who reflect that love like a kaleidoscope - casting the shape and colour of God’s Kingdom in the world around us. We are to be people whose bodies bring beauty and kindness; justice and hope.

When we see what is sublime in our world, we are called to live with a lightness that resists consumption and exploitation. When the fog of political debate descends we are to speak with clarity of the one whose name is righteousness, who brings healing in its wings. 

As we long for the world’s salvation, we pray that the Sprit will stir us from apathy; restrain us from excess; and revive in new hope: that all creation may be healed in Christ Jesus our Lord. 

© Julie Gittoes 2019