Simon Marsh

WHAT AN EXTRAORDINARY JOY it was to be present at the Inaugural Conference of the new Affirming Liberalism network at Trinity College Oxford yesterday. Not much of a “party affiliated” person by nature I was surprised by the enthusiasm with which I greeted news of a new liberal-minded network within the Church of England.

But then it’s true that I’ve grieved in the past decade or so as I’ve watched fellow Christians become more and more deeply entrenched in one degree of “certainty” after another. It’s true that I’ve been distressed by my own disinclination to “fight back”. It’s true that my theological inclinations have always been more ready to seek out affirmations than assertions. So the 10 Affirmations unexpectedly set before my eyes by Affirming Liberalism were bound to bring a measure of relief and joy to my heart.

Affirming Liberalism seeks to enhance the ‘enrichment’ of the Christian faith and support ordained and lay Christians of the Liberal Anglican tradition by:

Affirming faith in Jesus’ life, teaching, death and resurrection as revealing God’s limitless love for all humanity in this life and the next.

Affirming the dynamic action of the Holy Spirit in dispersing this divine love throughout the world.

Affirming the positive impact of biblical, literary and historical criticism for our engagement with Scripture and Tradition.

Affirming appreciation of the distinctive nature of religious language in vibrant worship which connects us to the divine.

Affirming a philosophical approach to Christian faith and the search for truth through God-given reason.

Affirming the positive insights of the natural sciences and mathematics in the formation of a Christian world-view and understanding of the universe.

Affirming the positive impact of the social sciences for understanding human nature and society, and developing Christian ethics.

Affirming the vitality of the performing and creative arts in shaping a dynamic Christian vision of life lived in relation to God.

Affirming open, creative conversation with Evangelicals and Catholics as a means of enriching our understanding of the Christian gospel.

Affirming open, creative conversation with other faith traditions and cultures as a way of deepening our understanding of God.

SELF-AWARENESS, VOCATION, AND HOW?

How did Jesus prepare for leadership without the “help” of mission statements, or identifying key people, or setting targets? How did Jesus survive a wilderness environment that reduced him, body and soul, to barest essentials, leaving his character and instincts starkly exposed, whipped by the razor-sharp winds of the desert? How did he survive, with no apparent external assistance, to shore him up or sustain him? My dictionary speaks of wilderness as an uncultivated, uninhabited, and inhospitable region. Tough training indeed. Even yomping SAS commandos have a bit more moral support around them than was available to Jesus.

APPEARING NOW TO LEAP FROM ONE SUBJECT TO ANOTHER

It’s Thanksgiving Sunday at St Michael & All Angels’ next week. The (actually only one) occasion in the year when it’s the Vicar’s task to encourage one and all to think and pray about what we might contribute to the work of God’s Church in terms of time, talents and money. And we’re all encouraged to think and to pray precisely because no-one else is equipped to tell us what we can or cannot afford to give or to do. Only we can know. Only we ourselves can square up to exactly what our relationship with God and the gifts he’s given us is. Only we, as individuals, can really know whether we’ve anything in our lives to be thankful for, or not.

“WILDERNESS” & THANKSGIVING ARE LINKED!

What kind of training and help do I need in order to arrive at a good decision about what I may or may not offer back to God? Is there anyone whose example I might follow? Is there man, woman or child who has risen above the grubby business of self-interest and temptation; anyone I can look up to, be inspired by, want to emulate? Where could I engage such a person in conversation? Where could I learn what inspired and motivated him or her? How can I learn not to feel pain when I give something away, but rather to revel in the laughter and joy of God’s creation itself? How do I learn to be a cheerful giver? Who am I? What am I called to be and do? And how?

THERE’S AN “ESSENTIALS” CLUE IN THE “WILDERNESS” …

I learn how to give when I’ve been to a place, in person or in spirit, where I’ve been brought face to face with reality; where I’ve been shown who and what I am; where I’ve come to know without shadow of a doubt that I am loved by my Creator, who is ALMIGHTY GOD, forever and ever, and that “I shall lack nothing”. I learn how to give when I’m even slightly more interested in even occasional quiet spaces alone with God than I am in my social life or in what I possess, or might some day possess. I learn how to give, and I learn how to love, and I learn how to “live life in all its fullness” on the very day, and in the very hour, and in the very moment, when I allow all of MY character and all of my instincts to be starkly exposed … to the inexpressible beauty, and the unimaginable generosity, and the surpassing glory and assurance, of GOD — who loves me, FOREVER.

MUCH TO OUR GREAT DELIGHT about 35 of us sat down “with” Maggi Dawn this morning. Others are readying themselves in-between times for a gathering tomorrow evening. Someone said at the end of the session this morning how struck they’d been by the musicality in most all of our beginnings and endings. Certainly it was true that a large gathering of friends hearing and telling “our story” brought to mind many a song; and a spot of liturgy:

Blessed are you, Lord God, our light and our salvation; to you be glory and praise for ever. From the beginning you have created all things and all your works echo the silent music of your praise …

 

Common Worship on the subject of common worship … and the possibility of just that, and of wondrous story-telling, and of beginnings and endings to be perceived and known and heard in oceans of wondering, creative silence …

Hey, Maggi, we’re enjoying this Adventing … and we haven’t really got started properly yet! xx

 

THERE WILL PROBABLY HAVE BEEN TIMES in your life when you’ve been able to say with the priest and poet, R S Thomas, that God comes

That’s so often how it is with the coming of God. Unannounced simplicity. No immediate expectation that we should behave in a particular way. No expectation that we should speak in an out-of-the-ordinary or convoluted theological language. No expectation that the “saving of souls” will make clearly defined or absolutist demands of human-kind, save for the Divine expectation of the God newly arrived in the back-streets of Bethlehem, that some one might pick up a Christ-child and hold Him close to their heart for to keep the little Chap warm.

This little Jesus teaches you and me how we are to be bridge-builders. This little Jesus is Pontifex — the bridge-maker, Emmanuel, God amongst us, the great High Priest, the Son of the Most High, the sacrifice or Christmas present of Almighty God Himself to His beloved world. This little Jesus is God come among us. We are to be little like Him. We are to be loved and we are to love. We are to be remarkable, at Christmas-time and through all time, for the absence of clamour; knowing that Christ leads His children on to the place where He has now gone. Home.

¹ Suddenly - R S Thomas, COLLECTED POEMS 1945-1990

LIFE IS FULL TO BURSTING with beginnings and endings - though this page has seen a dearth of beginnings in recent months. My favourite bloggers go ‘blog lite’ from time to time … the muse dries up. Blogging is life “written down” after all, so we shouldn’t be surprised.

And then, every once in a while, something or someone really fires up the imagination again. Something or someone reminds us of the story. Our story. And that someone or something might be miles away, and never, for a second, dream of the effect they’re having on others.

Maybe Maggi Dawn has dreamed about having just such an effect. Perhaps that’s why she’s written one of the best books for Advent I’ve encountered in years. Here’s a book that will make Advent for you. Here’s a book that we’ll be using in Bramhall to get a grip again on what it’s all about. Here’s Beginnings and Endings: accessible teaching and encouraging reflection. Here’s a favour to the Church, a right royal blessing, an Advent in itself. Thanks Maggi!

Beginnings and Engings … buy yours and enjoy the Advent journey. 

WHENCE COMETH LOVE?

From he who has in him of she

for she who has in her of he

who was and is

Eternity

click photo for full resolution 

WHAT WAS YOUR PERSPECTIVE

on the world when you were housed

here?

Was this shell a warm place -

a cocoon of security

a window through which you might gaze

out upon a world

more colourful than you?

Were these polished walls a safe haven

in the hours of your vulnerability? The soft

sensitive facets in me would be glad of such

a splendid shell as yours

from time to time

And yet I own gladness that I may stand for

your protected fragility is no more

and amongst the joys of today’s peaceful shore

I found only your shell and an echo

in what was once your land

 
Grateful thanks to Andrew Rudd, Cheshire Poet Laureate 2006, for inspiration and encouragement

‘This is my Son, my Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.’ We ourselves heard this voice come from heaven, while we were with him on the holy mountain. So we have the prophetic message more fully confirmed. You will do well to be attentive to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.

2 Peter 1.16-19

 

 

KNOWN TODAY as the “Desert Fathers” the earliest Christian monks inhabited the desert land of the Middle East from the end of the second century AD and were the foundation upon which later monastic founders, including St Benedict, built their way of life. A great deal of the teaching of the Desert Fathers is expressed in the form of anecdotes. Here is one such story:

Abba Lot went to see Abba Joseph and said to him, “Abba, as far as I can, I say my little office, I fast a little, I pray and meditate, I live in peace and as far as I can, I purify my thoughts. What else can I do?” Then the old man stood up and stretched his hands toward heaven. His fingers became like ten lamps of fire and he said to him, “If you will, you can become all flame.” *

 

Members of God’s family we are, nonetheless, caught up in the process of becoming the sons and daughters of God: being “changed from glory into glory”. Peter and James and John were present with—and to—Jesus upon the holy mountain—where they’d gone expressly “to pray”. And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly they saw two men, Moses and Elijah, talking to him. Peter, James and John knew without doubt (“the prophetic message fully confirmed”) that this transfigured man was the Son of God himself—in the very company of heaven—by means no more convoluted than that he was at prayer. And wonder of wonders, that’s what we’re about in our Eucharistic worship today: for “If you will, you can become all flame.” 

* Joseph of Panephysis—The Sayings of the Desert Fathers: Translated by Benedicta Ward, Cistercian Studies Series, number 59. This is saying 7 of Abba Joseph—p.103

I HAVE BEEN ABSORBED by Tony Hendra’s moving and un-put-downable Father Joe. The late Dom Joseph Warrilow, Monk of Quarr Abbey, was for Hendra, and for countless others, “the man who saved my soul”. Hendra recalls that Father Joe, wonderfully warm, wise, present and humane, had said that “the only way to know God, the only way to know the other, is to listen. Listening is reaching out into that unknown other self, surmounting your walls and theirs; listening is the beginning of understanding, the first exercise of love.”

None of us listen enough, do we, dear? We only listen to a fraction of what people say. It’s a wonderfully useful thing to do. You almost always hear something you didn’t expect.

 

There’s no alternative to listening. The best debating listens; the best diplomacy listens; the best friendship listens; the best learning listens; the best loving listens; the best praying listens; the best teaching listens; the best worship listens. But none of us listens enough. None of us listens enough - whilst longing, in the midst of the perpetual noise of this world, to be warm, wise, present and humane. Tony Hendra’s story, and Father Joe’s example, encourage me to keep trying.
 

 

“let there be spaces in your togetherness, and let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another, but make not a bond of love: let it be rather a moving sea between the shores of your souls”

 

The apostles returned from their mission. They gathered around Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught. He said to them, ‘Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest awhile.’ For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. And they went away in the boat to a deserted place by themselves.

Mark 6.30-32

I LOVE TO RECALL FR JIM BRAND’S coming to address one of our Swanwick Clergy Conferences years ago. An energetic and inspiring priest, much of the gist of what he had to say has stayed with me, long after I finally lost the tapes I was in the habit, frequently, of loaning to friends. I keep promising myself that, one day, I’ll ask the Diocesan Office whether they’ve kept copies of those tapes.

Christian people, Fr Jim suggested, wasted many of life’s most wonderful opportunities simply because they were too busy rushing on to the next thing. When engaged in conversation, or administering the sacraments, Fr Jim reckoned to work hard at ensuring that the person in front of him, at that moment, received his fullest and best attention. I’ve tried, often unsuccessfully, to follow his example.

‘Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest awhile,’ …

… said Jesus to his apostles, teaching them, much as Fr Jim would later teach our gathering at Swanwick, something of the spiritual discipline of retreat, or waiting, or contemplation. Of course we know that Jesus was pastorally compassionate, too: only a verse or two after his call to rest we read, in v. 34

… as he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things …

But that takes nothing away from the principle that Christian people need to take time for rest, refreshment, prayer and contemplation—time for the present moment. Time for God.

Fr Richard Rohr OFM—another priest who continues to teach me a very great deal, tells of an encounter between a Zen master and his disciple:

“Is there anything I can do to make myself enlightened?”

“As little as you can do to make the sun rise in the morning.”

“Then of what use are the spiritual exercises you prescribe?”

“To make sure you are not asleep when the sun begins to rise”

Fr Richard goes on to say

“The contemplative secret is to learn to live in the now. The now is not as empty as it might appear to be or that we fear it may be”. ¹

Come, then, let us rest awhile

 

“in the Lord; in whom you (we) also are built together spiritually into a dwelling-place for God.”

Ephesians 2.22

FROM WHENCE CAME THE BRAVERY with which John the Baptist “explained the way of God more perfectly” to the Tetrarch, Herod Antipas, who had married his brother Philip’s wife? (cf Mark 6.14-29). From whence came the courage of the Christ of God who climbed the hill of Calvary and there gave up His Spirit? From whence came the bravery, the courage and the conviction of those saints and martyrs, and priests and people, who have proclaimed the Gospel faithfully, in season and out of season - seemingly untouched and unmoved by either public acclaim or the lack of it … from whence?

Well: the key is at a banquet. Not the debauched, drunken, revelling sort of a banquet. Not the stuff of the Kingdom of Herod - he, who, with puffed-up self-importance, promised “even half of my Kingdom” to a dancing-girl.  

The bravery, courage and conviction of John the Baptist, of Jesus the Christ, of saints and martyrs, and priests and people, through countless years, comes from the great banquet of the Kingdom of God. How very small a Tetrarch must appear to those possessed of higher vision! How small and really rather sad, and futile, the little lives of powerful men given over to quaffing wine, puffing out their chests, and a haze of belly-dancing. 

At the banquet of the Kingdom of Heaven in Bramhall today our sights were set rather higher than one of Herod Antipas’ parties.

High on yon celestial mountains stands his sapphire throne, all bright, midst unending alleluias bursting from the sons of light; Sion’s people tell his praises, victor after hard-won fight. [So] Bring your harps and bring your incense, sweep the string and pour the lay; let the earth proclaim his wonders, King of that celestial day; he the Lamb once slain is worthy, who was dead and lives for ay.

Job Hupton, (1762-1849) 

Half a Kingdom, King Herod? No thanks. Our sights our set on higher than that, and in God’s good time, at that. For:

Whoever is devoid of the capacity to wonder, whoever remains unmoved, whoever cannot contemplate or know the deep shudder of the soul in enchantment, might just as well be dead for he has already closed his eyes upon life.

 

So said Albert Einstein. So, each in their different ways, did John the Baptist, Jesus the Christ, and the whole glad company of angels and saints. Let synods and sinners, and the saints and the sorrowing, and the Church in every time and every place, look UPWARDS, to the sapphire throne all bright … and chorus in unending alleluias with the saints in light. So shall we know a new bravery, a new courage and conviction. So shall we be, confidently, the Christ’s Church.

TO BE TRANSFORMED by the renewing of our minds. Our evening prayer suggests today that I - that we - are to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. And I’m glad to hear it, for I’ve discovered that renewal is good. My entire Christian pilgrimage has been about the renewing of my mind, about the renewing of our minds, about – to put it simply – growing up!

I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Romans 12.1-8

Two streams met and looked ahead at a vast desert.

The trees were dry and withered: nothing grew; the mouths of the cattle were chapped: everything was dry, awful.

The first said to the second, ‘What are you going to do?’

The second stream travelled to the desert.

The desert said, ‘I am going to swallow you. There will be no change, for I am glad when everything is dry, withered and dead.’

The second stream flowed on.

The desert opened its mouth, swallowed the stream and remained a desert.

The first stream shook its head, turned right round, passed boulders, went on up, up, reached the infinite lake which looked at the stream and said, ‘I have long looked for a channel.’

The stream said, ‘Pour through me.’

The lake poured through the stream.

The desert said, ‘I will drink you up.’

The little stream flowed on and on and swallowed up the desert, and all the barren land blossomed like a rose.

Ephraim Alphonse: Panama

 

Truly this is to be our vocation in this dawn of the twenty-first century: to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. And then, better equipped to discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect, streams of living water will flow on and on and on … and all the barren land …

Lord, hear us. Lord, graciously hear us.

 

Teachers who make room for cautious, doubting, experimenting, tentative disciples are the greatest mentors. And we are citizens, learners, allowed room for loving and laughing, for failing and trying, for praying and parting, for crying and dying. Closed doors present no problem to the Risen Jesus: He comes among us “though the doors were shut” to say “Peace be with you”. And we, who are allowed to doubt, tentatively step forward, beckoned by God’s “it’s going to be OK” … until the day when we can say, “My Lord and my God!” … becoming “Blessed” or “Happy”.

Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, ‘We have seen the Lord.’ But he said to them, ‘Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.’ A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’ Then he said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.’ Thomas answered him, ‘My Lord and my God!’ Jesus said to him, ‘Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.’

John 20.24-29

WHAT WOULD JESUS SAY? – my friend Bill would almost always interject … sometimes to the considerable chagrin of one or two of us … who were very probably articulating our current flight of fancy at the time. What would Jesus say?

And the painful answer often was, and is, that we’re not entirely sure! And this is sometimes the more acutely painful because our human conditioning makes of us a people who want to be sure what we’re about, what we’re doing, what we’re believing. And – to complicate matters further – there are some folk who, in addition, want to be sure what others are about, or are doing, or are believing. This is real human commerce! This is the stuff of what it means to be community … to live together.

Archbishop Rowan speaks words of counsel to us in his The Challenge and Hope of Being an Anglican Today: A Reflection for the Bishops, Clergy and Faithful of the Anglican Communion. (see Ruth Gledhill)

Meanwhile in parishes around the globe we chatter about “Fresh Expressions”, of “Looking Outwards”, of “Justice” and of “Peace”; of mission and of schism, of unity and of disunity; of straight and of gay. And in all of this, and more, I’m endlessly interrupted by Bill’s “What would Jesus say?”

And difficult though it be I know that I ought to have a better idea of what Jesus might say to the Church in our day. I ought to have a clearer idea of what Jesus is saying to me. And so, deep down, I know that I must spend less time looking backwards, forwards, outwards, inwards or sideways, and learn to look upwards.

I’ll come to a clearer understanding of Jesus’ view of things when I study the Scriptures and share in the Sacraments with that openness of mind and heart that is invoked by true “worship in Spirit and in truth” … and when I remember, amidst the clamour and the clatter of life in the Church and in the world that whatever Jesus would say, whatever Jesus is saying, HIS tone is a “still, small voice of calm”.

Let me then pay more attention to “looking upwards”: more to worship, and to prayerful listening, than to soapbox flights of fancy … or good old (bad old) religiosity …

What would, what does, JESUS say?

photo: Snowdon/CameraPress 

ALL THE CHRISTMAS DAY CELEBRATIONS I can remember in my life have known one constant feature - Her Majesty the Queen’s Christmas broadcast. I can’t remember missing one - or ever wanting to miss one. In recent years (2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005) I have been moved to tears by these broadcasts. Tears of joy and gratitude for a wise and gracious Monarch, full of Christian faith, who speaks of that faith with touching simplicity and depth, and whose unashamedly Christian faith so very naturally and generously embraces, after the manner of Christ Himself, people of all faiths and none. Anointed, long ago, when crowned, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth has ever since ‘anointed’ this nation with gifts of Christ-like service, wisdom and compassion. God save the Queen.

On Thursday last Archbishop Rowan of Canterbury preached what has become famously described, by the Times correspondent Ruth Gledhill, as a ‘stonking’ good sermon in honour of Her Majesty’s 80th birthday. All who read it will find further cause to give thanks for a wise and gracious Archbishop. Again: God save the Queen. And may God sustain our Archbishop.

  

 

BRAMHALL’S ECUMENICAL CLERGY meet together every Thursday morning for prayer and reflection. For me this gathering contains the very stuff of “the balm of life, the cure of woe, the measure and the pledge of love.”

Pastor Jonathan Dawson gently led us through 1 Thessalonians 5 this week … “Do not quench the power of the Spirit”. Sometimes the gift of another’s ministry roots me to the spot. I was headed for the Funeral of a dearly loved fellow pilgrim, our friend, Dorothy Laidlaw. And to add to heaviness of heart I’d read a few of the early reports coming out of ECUSA’s General Convention.

Dorothy now knows God’s reward for her. The Funeral Thanksgiving reiterated our faith and hers. But the tearing in the heart of Christ’s Anglican Communion today, and the fault all unjustly laid upon the doorsteps of such a precious few, leaves me longing, still, for an end to these long running battles, each purporting to fight for the purity of our Christian faith.

Let me not forget, then, the power of the Spirit! God grant me to be faithful in the task of doing “good to one another and to all.” For though I can’t see a way out of the present impasse … and am quite obviously not alone in this inability, Pastor Jonathan reminded me that “The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do this”.

May the Lord heal and anoint his hurting people. May we rejoice in any and all who seek to praise God and tell of his great and redeeming love. May Christ inspire us again to hold in check our all too ready willingness to judge others. May he gently enable us to deal quietly and effectively with the mote that blurs our higher vision.

The bird on the branch, the lily in the meadow, the stag in the forest, the fish in the sea, the countless joyful creatures sing, God is Love. But beneath all these sopranos, as it were a sustained bass part, is the De profundis of the sacrificed, God is Love.

Søren Kierkegaard

ONE OF THE REAL CHALLENGES, and for me perhaps one of the greatest joys, in the life of a parish priest is that part of the task that requires the sharing of the old Wisdom - the received Tradition - in language that can be understood today. And in both the challenge and the joy there are reminders for the priest that The Story is not his or her story, not the work of his or her own art or talent. It’s a Shared Story. An epic!

Today I’ve engaged in at least a dozen very different pastoral encounters. All, in their different ways, were “asking” for some pertinent, relevant, cringe-free sharing of Christian faith. And I’m never happier than when I hear the sound of the “penny dropping” in my own life, and in the lives of the people I encounter and converse with. Never happier than when it becomes obvious that people’s misconceptions of who the priest is likely to be, of Religion with a big R, of fear or confusion – are replaced by what I’ve often called “relieved relationship.”

And when we allow ourselves simply to relax in our day-to-day relationships The Story often unfolds naturally and thus the more relevantly … constantly drawing upon, constantly bringing to mind, the stories and experiences that have illuminated our own lives and the lives of our fellow pilgrims.

It’s important that I remember that I’m not about telling “my” story. The priest is about telling “everyone’s” story … many, many combined distillations of over 2000 years of Christian history … and of a much bigger canvas reaching back much, much further than that - and reaching forward much, much further than that.

Priests, then, will always and everywhere feel that they’re telling someone else’s story in order to communicate everyone’s story in a hundred thousand different ways. Because they are! The Christian, not just the priest, is like a magpie, says Bishop Michael Marshall. Always “borrowing” from the combined experience, from the “tradition”, from the nests of saints and fatheads alike – in order to “translate” the Word; to fan sparks into flames; to encourage the leap from enquiry to a new knowing.