Angels & Demons

We’ve been doing an occasional film & discussion group at church, and we did Da Vinci code recently, which was fun, and gave me an excuse to get history nerdy and point out where things went far adrift of reality. Anyway, as A & D was just being released in the cinema we took a group to go and see it. I’ve been reading the book too. Well, the film was fun (and actually hangs together better than Da Vinci Code – once again the preposterous plot is ably assisted on its way by a very capable supporting cast) but I’m now unsure whether it’s worth meeting up for a discussion of it. There just doesn’t seem to be much to discuss from the film. As presented, the whole science & religion thing is distinctly downplayed, the Illuminati are a bit of a red herring, and the Catholic church do kind of what you’d expect them to do in the circumstances (with the exception of one character, the weirdness of whom is fairly central to the story). All in all, the church come fairly well out of it – given the feather-ruffling caused by Da Vinci Code Brown presents a suprisingly humane and sympathetic church here.

So, a bit of fun with not much real food for thought. That’s what I thought, however, until I finished reading the book. Now, I’m not a huge Dan Brown fan, and I feel at this point obliged to have a rant about his novels, so you may find it easiest to skip to the next paragraph when I’ve got this off my chest. He does just enough research to make the inaccuracies he includes very plausible to the innocent reader, and as a natural sensationaliser of history he tends towards the most entertaining and shocking interpretations of events. And (especially in the case of TDVC) the images he is presenting will linger long in people’s minds. The blue-tinted ‘history’ images from that film, depicting events that never happened will have an impact on the popular imagination that will not easily be undone. Just when Pagans were starting to concede that the myth of the Burning Times was exactly that, Dan Brown firmly underlines it in people’s minds. He’s also not the greatest writer. Robert Langdon has more than a touch of Mary Sue about him. He’s a good-looking sophisticated, witty, wealthy, Harvard professor with a world-wide reputation, seems to attract sexy smart women, and is also incredibly physically fit and a former champion swimmer… Then there’s the fact that Brown appears to only have one plot: academic is murdered with arcane symbols on his body, leaving a smart and sexy orphaned daughter to accompany Robert Langdon in following a series of clues in which they are hampered by a policeman who looks like a bad guy but turns out to be a good guy, and helped by a guardian angel who looks like a good guy but turns out to be the bad guy who has manipulated the whole thing. Oh, and they dodge some really weird psycho assassin on the way. I can only guess that it was to avoid making the overlap too obvious that Hollywood chose not to make the love interest the victim’s daughter this time, and made the assassin a conventional hitman for hire rather than a sadistic descendant of the cult of Hassassins (that and the fact that no-one wants to add a murderous muslim character just for ‘colour’ these days).

Anyway, I wasn’t overly impressed by the book as a piece of writing, but I did find the handling of the science/religion thing a lot more interesting than they chose to present it on screen. Although the villain is clearly nuts, he has a definite grasp of some interesting tensions between the church and modernity, understood in a more subtle form than is normally the case. The science/religion debate is often presented as being simply a clash between competing world-views, between rationality and superstition or faith and godlessness depending on your position. Commendably, Brown steers clear of this. He makes much of the fact that the two have never been entirely separate. Vetra is priest and scientist, seeking to prove God’s existence with science. And Janus is not a stereotypical advocate of religion alone. He embraces technology and progress. His issues are more subtle (though disturbingly he still feels drawn to take extreme measures to fight for them): the rate of scientific progress being allowed to outstrip growth in moral reflection, and a scientific mindset that encourages a search for answers even when reverent appreciation of mystery may be more appropriate. His problem is actually one of pace: the sense that the rate of scientific progress is pushing human beings beyond their ability to morally develop, that we are literally rushing in where angels fear to tread. This is a not uncommon feeling. Setting aside the trappings of the thriller (not many people feeling like this decide the answer is to provoke a war between science and religion by killing a few cardinals and threatening to blow up the Vatican), this is something well worth exploring.

It is certainly true that the pace of scientific and technological progress is accelerating. Moral codes and legal frameworks struggle to keep pace with scientific development that sometimes raises genuinely new questions: eg what is the moral status of life created from human genetic material but which is not in itself capable of becoming human life? It is likewise true that as a species we seem to find inventing ways to destroy easier than inventing ways to heal or create. Environmental issues as well as the legacy of warfare have left us very aware of the consequences of immoral and thoughtless applications of science in our world. In many ways the whole ‘modern world slipping further away from morality’ idea rings true. But there are some hidden assumptions in this line of argument, however congenial it may seem. Not least of these is that science is not permanently wedded to the idea that there is a single comprehensible answer to everything.

So, there’s probably something to discuss, but only if people have read the book, and to be honest I’m not sure I could in all conscience force people to do it…

I do still knit you know….

Although I have mostly been posting about ministry things I do actually still knit a fair amount. It’s very therapeutic- often prayer time for me. It helps me to be still and I have a few projects that are cast on for particular people I am praying for- to guide my prayers. This cardigan, better known as the conference cardigan was begun on the Lichfield diocesan clergy conference this year. It was a wonderful time for me- mostly because of the sessions themselves. I felt enthused on so many levels not least to begin to love myself and my body more. To care for myself and to be confident about being a woman in my priestly ministry.

The cardigan is very shapely and fitted- it’s the beginning of being proud of me a little. The beginning of working on something I should have worked on sooner perhaps. So watch this space I may blog a little more knitting in future!

One of the hardest sermons ever…but had to be said.

Mark 6:1-13

I had some really tough decisions to make when I read the readings for this week because the gospel reading says a lot of different things and there were a lot of different sermons that I could preach from it. There was however one thing that it seemed to me needed to be preached. It’s not easy to preach about and it’s not easy to listen to. I don’t want to preach this sermon and you probably won’t want to hear it but I think it is the sermon that needs to be preached. I’m going to talk to you this morning about the things people say about people in ministry. It will not just be about the things people say about me but it will include that. The reason I’m doing this though is not because I’m wanting to defend myself or have a go at people about things they might be saying about me but because I’m not the only person in ministry in this church. We have a curate, Steve (who has at least 2 years of training left to do with us), we have a lay reader, Joyce. There are a number of other people who take very clear public roles- Gloria, Dorothy, George and Sheila, Bill and Sheila… to name a few! We also have 2 people from this church who are actively exploring a possible call to ordained ministry- who are both looking to serve in ministry at St John’s. All of these people have been and will be affected by the sorts of things people say about them to their face or behind their back. So I’m talking about these things today not just for me but also for them because if we as a church can’t learn how to support and encourage those called to ministry amongst us – we will all be losing out.

Picture the scene. Jesus has just begun to travel around galilee preaching the gospel, healing the sick and doing miracles. It’s his home town of Nazareth. It’s the Sabbath- a holy day. So everyone is gathered in the synagogue for worship. Jesus, with his disciples, has come home. He’s there in the synagogue this morning. He’s probably not planning it as a big event- just passing through but he has a ministry of preaching and healing and people from his home town will have heard what he has been doing elsewhere. So he starts to teach. What do you think happens? Maybe to start with it’s just a little muttering at the back where they don’t think he or his disciples will hear. ‘Who does he think he is?’ ‘Isn’t he getting a bit big for his boots?’ ‘not like he’s a proper rabbi-we know who he really is. He’s just a carpenter.’ By now maybe the mutterings and the significant looks have crept a bit further forward in the synagogue and Jesus’ disciples start noticing. Maybe there’s some of the elders up the front making faces at each other behind him where they think he can’t see. ‘hmm hark at him! It’s Mary’s son (we were never quite sure if Joseph was really his father wasn’t he born before they were married?). Look here’s his brothers- James, Joses, Judas and simon, they think he’s a bit strange’. His sisters were sitting in the women’s gallery, maybe they were some of the ones doing the gossiping. The Nazarene’s might have thought their comments and looks were discreet but they didn’t go unnoticed and there was soon a distinct atmosphere in the room. They thought he was a bit too full of himself, they thought he didn’t really know his place, they thought he’d forgotten where he came from and so they stopped listening. Jesus Said ‘A prophet is honoured for the words they speak, words that are given them by God, the right words for people to hear at the right time. Prophets are not without honour except in their home town, their own house and amongst people who know them’. He said this because when people think they know you they think they already know what you’re capable of. So Jesus did minister in Nazareth but their unbelief, their small mindedness, their assumptions and their gossip restricted his ministry so much that the amazing things he had intended to do became impossible. I want you to consider for a moment the implications of that. Jesus was God. God was limited by human beings and it wasn’t what we would see as big sins, huge issues and problems that restricted Jesus’ ministry in that place. The people didn’t stone him. They weren’t too bogged down in sinfulness to be reached by the good news he had to share. They gossiped, they talked behind his back, they belittled him, but that was enough.

I’m not going to tell you any of the things that I’ve heard said here but there are many examples I could give. I will share some of the things I heard said in my previous posts about the vicars there.

Edited out comments.

I don’t think I’m like those priests and there isn’t anyone involved in ministry here like them so the things being said there will not be the same as the things being said here. But things are being said here and not just about me. Just like in the synagogue at Nazareth, lots of things are being said and taken individually none of them sound that serious, they could all be discredited or put into a different perspective. However together they create an atmosphere within which effective ministry becomes impossible. God was limited by this kind of atmosphere in Nazareth and he will be limited as those he sends in ministry are limited in Heath Hayes. I’m not saying we can’t have genuine grumbles or disputes with people in ministry. Sometimes ministers get things wrong and we need to be told when that happens. Sometimes people in ministry do unpopular things and you need to know that you can express your feelings about it. What I’m talking about is not either of those things. It’s not openly challenging something you feel is wrong.

If I could give you some pointers to help I would probably say: firstly: don’t belittle those you have called to serve you. It will not help them to be better ministers and it may make it impossible for you to be ministered to through them. Our marital status, our children and how we choose to care for them, our parentage, our age, our education- all of these things define who we are, but the significance and authority of our ministry has nothing to do with them. Belittling someone by reference to these things or others like them is really a way of attempting to undermine the ministry they have been called to exercise. Secondly: assumptions. Never assume you know anybody so well that you can predict exactly what they will say and do in any given situation. When we stereotype people, when we pidgeon hole them and write them off and stop listening to them we don’t leave space for God to work through that person in ministering to us. I think both of those pointers are really about respect. It’s respect , yes for the person but ultimately for the calling and ministry that they have- irrelevant of the person and their failings.

So my challenge to you is to not be another Nazareth. Do not limit what can be done here. Don’t reject the possibility of amazing things happening. Don’t force your leaders to dust off their feet as they move on in ministry. Respect those whom God sends you, leave space for him to work through them in your lives. God sends people of all shapes and sizes- sometimes they are close to us and sometimes they are a stranger. If you cannot do this for those who are visible ministers, those who are obviously sent by God – if you cannot show respect to these people then how will you do so to the ones God sends you everyday… to each other?

So your vicar is in the pulpit, it’s the Sabbath, the holy day. I wonder what you’re thinking? Am I limited by your knowledge of me? Are the things that define me barriers for you? I wonder will you gossip? Will God touch just a few through my ministry here or will he do amazing things?

And another thing… (The trouble with working women)

I’m clearly on a roll here. Thought I’d jot down a few reflections on a brilliant two part documentary on BBC2 I managed to catch most of: The trouble with working women. Managed to pull off the neat trick of wading into hugely controversial waters, remaining light and entertaining, and raising really important thought-provoking issues, even if ultimately I’m not sure they were the ones the programme makers thought they were raising. It turns out that the trouble is less with working women, and more with working mothers. To conclude, as they did, by reflecting on whether women can ‘have it all’ and concluding it was all about women multi-tasking where men focused just on career seemed a step back from the level of reflection they’d actually achieved during the documentary, where one of the most acute questions posed was why female surgeons seemed to rise to the top of their profession at the expense of a family life, whereas the top male surgeon they interviewed spoke candidly about the anti-social hours he worked yet had a large family. The unspoken answer to the question seemed to be ‘yes, you can have it all, as long as your wife is prepared to run around like a headless chicken keeping all the balls in the air while you do it’.

The whole thing was full of suprising convention-challenging moments. The things that stayed with me were one of the founders of Spare Rib noting that they got it badly wrong because none of them had children; the suprisingly reactionary founder of the women’s refuge movement asking why we’re obsessed with senior executive posts when trying to evaluate whether we have equality in society or not; and the female executive of a small business stating tat she wouldn’t hire women of childbearing age because they’re inherently risky- likely to disappear on maternity leave, and that business would fight paternity leave provision tooth and nail because they need men of that age to continue to be predictable at being in work irrespective of having a family.

I was left wondering if the real issue was parenthood and why it is that women are socially conditioned to be the ones left holding the baby when the music stops. Can things change? Yes, with enlightened employers like the one they showcased, which basically takes the line that their staff are their prime resource and selling point to the customer, so staff retention is a high priority. On that basis they offer 9 months paid maternity leave, encourage flexible working, reduction of hours to work around childcare commitments, and do all of this with no negative impact on promotion prospects. The female executive they spoke to said when she was promoted to her current post she was pregnant and working part-time. Now if only we could encourage the church to put it’s money where it’s mouth is and follow best industry practice…

And as with the fight for equality for women within the church, I suspect focusing on top jobs and glass ceilings really misses the point. The issues that effect most women are bullying and harrasment and institutional issues connected with maternity leave and childcare. Counting how many women bishops there aren’t misses the point.

Mark

Turning over a new leaf?

Well, Leah has finally bitten the bullet and started running, so I thought I ought to try and blog a bit more. And here’s my first offering: my first sermon in Heath Hayes, preached on Sunday, reproduced here by popular demand (well, Rosie asked for it anyway).
A couple of explanatory notes first:

I preach from headings rather than full text, so I’m not going to attempt to give a full text version here. I’ll hopefully expand the headings enough that it makes sense what I was saying. It also means that what goes down here is not necessarily exactly what anyone in church on Sunday heard. My sermons tend to evolve a bit depending on the setting.

And I’m experimenting with a new style here. For a while now I’ve been intruiged by the sort of structure used in stand up comedy, in particular Eddie Izzard’s routines, which I love to bits. He uses a structure where he appears to have no obvious progression of thought and be continually lurching off into bizarre and unanticipated flights of fancy yet the same characters or thoughts or ideas get woven into them. And each time a thought gets re-introduced into a new context, enabling it to be seen in a new light, it gets a bigger laugh. I wanted to try this sort of thing in a sermon: building the structure not around a logical progression of thought (as I normally do) but around a single idea, placed in different contexts. This sort of structure is well suited to John anyway, because he thinks like that, and I try to preach in a way that gives integrity to what’s there.

So, without further ado, on to the sermon: John 15:9-17 – Abiding in Jesus’ love.

A story (probably apocryphal): there was once a minister somewhere in scotland who had the habit, when he visited his parishoners, of sitting and listening to them, doing all the normal things you’d expect. But at the door on his way out, he’d turn and quote a verse of scripture at them. And then he’d say “Stick that under yer tongue and suck it like a sweetie”.
John’s gospel takes a bit of time to get your heard around, because John doesn’t think in straight lines. He thinks in spirals. He circles round and round ideas, seeing them from different angles. It’s like sucking on a sweet, a hard-boiled one, that you keep in your mouth and let it move around and around, tasting as more of the flavour emerges.
I think what John is saying in this passage is all about abiding in Jesus’ love. He’s circling around these words of Jesus “abide in my love”, seeing them from different angles. Abide, live in it, make your home in it. And I think what he’s saying about it is this: to abide is to obey, to obey is to love, to love is to abide.

To abide is to obey
The places we live shape us in different ways. My parents house is a semi with thin walls. So I learnt to play music quietly. My mother was a librarian. So I learnt to mark my place with a bookmark. My abiding had a shape. It’s not that there were a set of ‘house rules’ I had to follow or I’d be chucked out. Rather, I became a certain sort of person because of the place I lived. Abiding in Jesus’ love makes us Jesus’ love-shaped. Not ‘now you’re a Christian you’d better behave’ but ‘you’re a Christian, and that will shape you and your behaviour, like it or not’.
To abide is to love, to love is to obey, to obey is to abide.

To obey is to love
Very easy to hear John’s words ‘love your friends’ and think he’s got it wrong. We’re used to hearing about the challenge to love our neighbours, our enemies, to go beyond just loving our friends (don’t even the pagans do this? as Jesus asks in another gospel). But in some ways, loving our friends is harder than loving our enemies. Our friends, the people we have lived with, know us too well. They know the things we don’t like people to know about us. We know the things they don’t like people to know about them. Intimacy is a great challenge to love. There’s a saying ‘familiarity breeds contempt’. There’s a lot of contempt in families. There’s a lot of contempt in churches. Love your friends. There’s a challenge. Not a challenge to have a love that is wide enough to reach out to the stranger, but a challenge to have a love that is deep enough to go beyond our contempt. Abiding in Jesus’ love creates a family, people committed to loving each other despite themselves, self-sacrificially.
To abide is to obey, to obey is to love, to love is to abide.

To love is to abide
We are more used to the idea of living with people than we are to the idea of living with ideas. But we do, we live with ideas, we let them feed our hopes and dreams, eventually our thoughts and actions, and finally they come to birth – they bring change in the world around us. When Barak Obama was elected president, the first Black president of the United States, many people looked back to Martin Luther King and his speech ‘I have a dream’. That was an idea people lived with, a dream people lived with, that changed them, and changed the world. Jesus says we are his friends, not his servants, because he shares his plans with us. He doesn’t want blind obedience from us, he wants us to share his hopes, share his dreams, share in the idea of the Kingdom of God. To live with that idea until it changes us and changes the world.
As far as John is concerned, love is the very essence of that idea. We may struggle with the idea that love is what being a Christian is all about – we probably know many people who are genuinely loving yet would not describe themselves as Christian – but for John, love is so central to what God’s plans are about that he would likely tell us that love is love, and if you truly love you may not live at the address you think you do. John says love is the idea that Jesus calls us to abide in – live with it, inhabit it, let it change you and change the world around you.
To abide is to obey, to obey is to love, to love is to abide.

Jesus says ‘abide in my love’.
John says ‘to abide is to obey, to obey is to love, to love is to abide’.
The Scottish minister says ‘Stick it under your tongue and suck it like a sweetie’.

The Upside down Parish?

2001 Census Parish of Heath Hayes & Wimblebury

Age 0-4 = 7.5% of the population

Age 5-14 = 15.3% of the population

Age 15-19 = 6.3% of the population

Age 20-44 = 43.2% of the population

Age 45-59 = 17.4% of the population

Age 60-84 = 9.7% of the population

The national balance is that we are ‘top heavy’ with older and elderly people- so this makes the discovery of the 2001 census results for my area quite striking!  I am  vicar in the upside down parish…….

Bloggers Block

I am here and trying to blog but there’s quite a lot of stuff that’s not processed enough to articulate right now.  It’s one of those things about learning to blog when you know that there are parishoners reading- and I’ve contemplated starting an anonymous blog but then I’m not sure how much that would work for me anyway!

Anyway, if I’m quiet then many apologies.  I’ll try and get Mark to blog a bit to keep things moving.

prayers and blessings,

Mother Bridget

Stirred up but not disturbed..or am I?

The Wifi at the clergy conference was very hit and miss so I failed to blog.  There was so much to reflect on so I regret that hugely.  However, when the CD recordings arrive I’ll be able to do it all again.

My immediate reflections are mostly around how in the light of the enhanced and reaffirmed understanding of the body that I return to the Parish with, in that context, how an earth to I live and lead in a way that is both true to the body I have been given (read body as body/mind/spirit) and live as a part of the physical resurrected bodily presence of God in our world.  All of this in the knowledge that I am very definitely a child of a post-modern society when the majority (well to be honest almost all) that I lead are children of modernism.    Part of me wonders about the straddling of time that was talked of often on the conference- the both now and not yet that we live in as a resurrection body.  Realised and future eschatology etc.  Does that give me a potential for understanding how I can possibly lead?  It still leaves the gaping hole of how a Generation Y  (I fit there better than Gen X) priest leads a church dominated with Builders and previous generations.  I feel quite disturbed by the current chasm that I percieve…where to start exploring that?  I found the squished academic in me (!) and have started beginning to take copious notes on the area I’d like to research- many thanks to an inspirational Paula Gooder and Jo Ind for stirring up the passion in me to communicate systematics, Christology, leadership and a kind of post-modern feminism that I feel I have to offer.  Certainly time to start writing again and if I dare maybe that thesis will begin with an MA.

So I am perhaps stirred up AND disturbed.

Busy Busy Buzz!

After spending our holiday listening to Winnie the Pooh as read by Alan Bennett the boys are rather taken by the idea of Bumble Bees.  Jude has also been learning Rhymes and songs about them and making them at Nursery this week.  So it’s all rather appropriate that I feel I’ve got the sensation of being a very busy bee myself this week.  I’ve got so much to catch up on and so very little time.  Argh!  The good news is that the computer is back and had a big repair.  Apple Mac’s don’t have major software issues but when the hardware goes- yikes! Thank Heaven for warranty!  From Monday I’m going to be at the diocesan clergy conference…perhaps I’l blog my way through that a little.  I’ll certainly be tweeting my way along.

In church terms things are going all right- the APCM went smoothly at least.  I’m going to buzz off now and get ready for this mornings meeting.

Buzzzzzz!

Happy 2nd Blog Birthday!

We’re taking a week away from the computer (happens to be broken!) so enjoy some seasonal cake to celebrate our Blogging Birthday whilst we are offline! Can’t believe I’ve been blogging 2 years now.

See you soon- Ressurexit Alleluia!