Reflections

Imagining the Resurrection

sheumais Pastoral Letter, Reflections

“Nothing” David Hume, enlightenment philosopher, historian, economist, librarian, and essayist, maintained: 

“is more dangerous to reason than flights of the imagination.and nothing has been the occasion of more mistakes among philosophers.”

Hume has hardly proved the most popular philosopher in Christian circles. Nevertheless, ever since the era of the Church Fathers many theologians have done their work as if nothing were more dangerous to theological reason than flights of the imagination.

Undoubtedly the imagination can lead us into a mess at times. That happens when we use images in attempts to describe and explain abstract realities as though they were the reality itself. At the same time, was there not value in the view championed by the romantics – that art and the imagination provide an authentic way of reaching reality?  The poet Keats put it this way: “What the imagination seizes as beauty must be truth”.

In ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ Shakespeare writes:

“Lovers and madmen have such seething brains, such shaping fantasies, that apprehend more than cool reason ever comprehends. The lunatic, the lover and the poet are of imagination all compact”.

What then has any of this to do with Easter and Christ’s resurrection?  Well, I wonder ifsome images help us to understand those mysteries much better than a more literal understanding of what the Gospels are telling us about such matters. If we take things too literally, we might fail to see what the Resurrection actually means and why it’s so important. However a word of caution, in doing so we need to avoid any temptation to try to actually describe what a risen life might look like?  So what can we learn from a moreimaginative approach to Christ’s Resurrection and even our own?

Many Christians find it easier (and bizarrely more comforting) to think about the life and death of Jesus rather than His resurrection. Their imagination fails, once they move beyond Good Friday. Amos Wilder, the American poet, minister, and theologian, observed: 

“Imagination is a necessary component of all profound knowing and celebration”.

Great artists create ‘symbols’ through which we can share their experience and insights. They invite us to enter in our imaginations, into the work of their imaginations. In imagining the human body, artists as different as El Greco and Rodin go behind the familiar appearance of the human body to re-express it in a new way. They move beyondorganic, material bodies beyond mere replicas, to glimpse hidden splendour and beauty. This is much the same as seeing beyond skin colour, gender, disability or any other observable characteristic, to see the real person within. They discover an inner glory in their subjects and, as it were, propel them into another world. The creative imaginations and hands of the artist liberate new life from within the constraints of ordinary life.

The Apostle Paul repeatedly speaks of God the Father as having “raised Jesus from the dead”. Might we see God the Father as the ultimate artist who sets free Jesus’ real bodily glory? In doing this for his crucified Son he promises to transform each of us into the splendour and beauty of what Paul calls the ‘spiritual body’. Paul encourages such an imaginative leap when he recalls an analogy from his Jewish background. Even dull readers, he expects, can marvel at the growth that transforms a grain into a mature plant ready for the harvest.

“But someone will ask, ‘How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?’ Fool! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And as for what you sow, you do not sow the body that is to be, but a bare seed, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body.” (1 Cor. 15:35-38).

Here Paul invites us for all our foolishness, to make the leap from the lesser miracle of harvest to the great wonder of the risen life: 

“So it is with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body.” (1 Cor. 15:42-44).

Over the past 18 months some of us have had to spend quite a bit of time thinking about church buildings, as we work to get St Andrew’s belfry tower repaired. In spite of the fact that once again we’ll celebrate the Resurrection with scaffolding inside the back of the church, Easter urges us to disconnect with the physical world and use our imaginations to see beyond such things as mere buildings.

At Easter, nothing trumps God’s Son being raised from the dead. Without that, Christianity is nothing at all and so as Christians we must never forget that it’s the risen Christ that’s at the heart of our faith and Easter is that time of the year when we try to use our imaginations to enter as fully as we’re able into the mystery of God Incarnate, Resurrected and Ascended and what that means for our lives.

May this Easter be a time of blessing for you and all those that you love.

Blessings
James

A Meditation on Good Friday

sheumais Reflections
“At the foot of the Cross” James Tissot (1896) Brooklyn Museum

Here we are at the foot of the Cross.

The Passion of our Lord is a very familiar story. A story that we have heard many times. The problem with familiar stories is the temptation to skip ahead, to fail to really listen to the now part of the story, to have already moved on to the next part. You see we know what happens next – or at least we think we do.

Here we are at the foot of the Cross. Where has everybody gone? 

Why are there are now so few remaining?

Meanwhile, standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. 

When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, “Woman, here is your son.” 

Then he said to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” 

Did many of those who packed churches across the world on Sunday think that they knew what happened next in the story? Did they think that they just had to cheer and someone else would do all the hard work? Do all those who were gathered in church in Lairg, Tain and Dornoch on Sunday think that they know what happens next? Do we think that we know what happens next?

Here we are at the foot of the Cross. At the beginning of something new, challenging and uncertain.

But the important thing is – that we are here. Why are we here? We are here as, were those at Golgotha, because although we know that something has ended, we trust in God’s mercy and grace and have hope that something new will happen. We don’t know what it is that will happen, unless we’re tempted to read ahead in the story and risk getting it totally wrong – like the crowd and the Jewish Authorities, to jump to conclusions and make assumptions about what God has in mind for us.

Here we are at the foot of the Cross. Not knowing what will happen next.

If things are really going to happen in our lives, we have to enter a state of not knowing what will happen, of not knowing how we will emerge at the end. Knowing is a characteristic of Divinity and not of humanity. In humility we need to recognise our humanity and God’s Divinity and enter into the state of not knowing so that He who knows can lead us to where He wants us to be.

In order to really enter into the momentous events of today, we need to abandon reading ahead in the story, abandon the idea that we have the slightest idea what happens next. Now let us close our eyes and listen to the story again told by a stranger and through it enter into that uncertainty and hope.

Amen.

The Relentless Sameness of the World

sheumais Reflections

Glory be to God for dappled things – 
   For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow; 
      For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim; 
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings; 
   Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough; 
      And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim. 

All things counter, original, spare, strange; 
   Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?) 

                                Praise him.

Gerald Manley Hopkins “Pied Beauty”

Hopkins wrote these words in the 1880’s. Forty years later they were published. His religious order, the Jesuits, has not allowed him to publish anything. They perhaps never read this poem, Pied Beauty. If they had done so and understood it, and, if they had known what was going to happen in the next century, they might have let it be published sooner.

Hopkins is arguing that what belongs to God, and what we should be thanking him for today, is the uniqueness and specialness of the natural world. When a thing belongs to God, says Hopkins, it is
unique and dazzling. This is true of nature and it is true of all things, even architecture. Hopkins saw in
Oxford that houses were being built in the 1880’s that all looked the same and was appalled. What then
would he have thought of the next hundred years of the relentless, overpowering, money-led rush for
sameness in the world which gathers at a pace each day. Soon it will be the case that if you are
parachuted into any town or city in the world they will all look the same.

This sameness is combined with complete control of all our actions which are filmed and monitored and
watched by some computer big brother controller everywhere we go. Some of you may think that this is
nothing to do with God. God, however, is central everything yet often moves within us and without us
unnoticed. When God is central there is delight and originality, when he is absent there is godless sameness.

Sameness is indeed the enemy of God. There is not just a sameness of architecture. Fed by absurd newspapers and increasingly partisan TV reporters, there is also a national sameness of thinking. People start to talk the same. They speak the same nonsense from Portsmouth to Leeds to Inverness, and, if you are not very careful, you will find not only is our architecture taken over by sameness but our minds too. The same half-truths and lies are spoken throughout the country because nobody possesses their own soul and, therefore, hearts are not tuned to the uniqueness and originality of God.

Not even our churches are exempt from the relentless sameness of the world. Christianity can become a type of all-in package holiday, which has its own fraternity and its own certainties. Whether you go to Portsmouth, Leeds or Inverness there are people who are acceptable and people who are not to these supposedly true Christians’ whether that be because they are evangelical, catholic, fundamentalist or liberal.

I wonder how our young original thinkers just gone off to University last year are getting on. Will they have the courage and the faith to do some searching? Will their faith become a journey or will they escape into those certainties of which many of us have grown unsure?

I am never convinced by the faith of anyone who says they are certain about anything. I do not think you can classify or standardise the work of God so that He works in the same way in Portsmouth, Leeds and Inverness. Nevertheless there is an energy, which comes from God that you can receive, anywhere and everywhere, what some people call the Holy Spirit.

I argue with the same old words that are used but I agree that ultimately Christianity is not necessarily perceived intellectually but by the heart. It is possible to have a relationship with God.

Indeed whatever your intellectual worries you will not discover the joy of the Christian life if you are not prepared ultimately to dive in.

There is a lot of nonsense talked about receiving the Holy Spirit which frightens the pants off most of us and seems to be entirely irrelevant to anything we see in this world. However I do know there is a thrilling energy of God, which some people rather boringly call the Holy Spirit. It might be better to call it PZAZZ or some such word. It is not just for churchy people.

Anyone can connect with it, You can connect with it. (help this sounds more and more like star wars theology – may the force be with you!) I wouldn’t mention it if I did not feel its presence every day. There is an energy that you can receive from God which will help you to become instruments of change in the world and part of God’s resistance to sameness movement.

It is an energy that will help you to withstand the darkness, in this broken money-led world; the relentless sameness of things: the sameness of thinking, of churches and architecture and all things. It will set you off on a journey, which you will recognise because of your capability to be original and your love for dappled things.

Richard Burkitt from “In defence of God and Laughter: 10 short sermons” 2010

Richard published this short sermon in 2010. How much more true are his words in the current age of social media, political correctness and ‘cancelling’ of people who challenge the prevailing narrative?

God so loved the world

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“God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.“

John 3:16-17

Approaching Holy Week

sheumais Pastoral Letter, Reflections

As I write we are just under half way through our Lenten journey. We have yet to arrive at Holy Week, probably the most difficult week of Lent. On Ash Wednesday we may have started with lots of good intentions to make a good lent, with perhaps a particular focus in mind. I did, but as time has gone on, many dreadful world events have distracted me, and my prayer has become increasingly centred around the plight of all those thousands of ordinary people, just like you and me, whose suffering, despair, and loss is so difficult to fully comprehend and while it has touched me deeply it has also made me deeply frustrated at our powerlessness in the face of all this awfulness.

As I reflect on these things, I take heart from the fact that Jesus Christ our Lord knows and understands what terrible suffering is like, at the hands of people who seek to dehumanise those they regard as their enemies. We have seen this dehumanisation so clearly in the actions of both Hamas and the Israeli government and IDF and also in the actions of Vladimir Putin’s forces in Ukraine and also in so many other areas of our troubled and broken world.

So in the remainder of Lent and as we approach Palm Sunday and start to recall the events of Holy Week, we have the perfect opportunity to listen and to engage with the retelling and reflect on Christ’s Passion of unimaginable cruelty.

To quote the famous words of the mediaeval mystic Mother Julian of Norwich (1342-1416), ‘And all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well’. But it’s very important for us not to hear Mother Julian’s words as a ‘happily ever after’ fairy-tale ending to all the dreadful and distressing things that are happening around us in the world, because they’re not and they’re not just wishful thinking either. What they do however, is to offer us a glimmer of hope and in our lenten journey, the whiff of Easter in the air.  Now that’s not to say that they’re just a tea and sympathy response to all the suffering and loss causing hurt and distress to many thousands of people around the globe. 

T. S. Eliot ends his poem ‘Little Gidding’ with the words ‘The fire and the rose are one’. For me the power of this image lies in the fact that both fire and rose have positive and negative effects. Fire can be a source of warmth and light, but it also has the power to destroy. Roses are flowers of incredible beauty, but their thorns can draw blood if you don’t handle them carefully.

The resurrection of Jesus Christ, doesn’t obliterate what happens to him on Good Friday. It doesn’t blot out its pain, or its darkness or its God-forsakenness, as if it never happened. What it does is it transforms it. It offers a new God-given perspective from which to view it, but it doesn’t erase it. The bruised body of a young Jewish man buried in a garden tomb on Good Friday evening still bears the marks of a crown of thorns and the cruel nails and the soldier’s spear. 

The Pascal Candle that we’ll light in St Finnbarr’s between sundown on Holy Saturday and dawn on Easter Day will burn with a flame lit from the new fire of Easter; but it’ll also be pierced with five grains of incense in the shape of a cross, symbolising the wounds of the crucified Christ. ‘The fire and the rose are one’.

Blessings
James

And who is my Neighbour?

sheumais Pastoral Letter, Reflections

The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity runs each year from 18th until 25th January. Now you might be wondering why it’s these particular dates.

The 18th January is when we mark the Confession of Peter when he was led by God’s grace to acknowledge Jesus as the Christ when Jesus asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” getting a variety of answers and then “But who do you say that I am?” and Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” You can read the full exchange in Matthew 16:13-20. 

The 25th January is when we celebrate the conversion of Paul the Apostle and what happened on the ‘Road to Damascus’ when Saul who had been persecuting the early Christians became a follower of Jesus and was renamed Paul.

The theme of Christian Unity is reflected in the fact that Peter was Apostle to the Jewish Christians and Paul Apostle to the Gentile Christians. Aspects of this will be discussed in our Lent Study when we will be studying Paul’s Letter to the Galatians which was written to address divisions over such matters. Outline details of the Lent Study can be found later in the Newsletter.

Back to the week of Prayer for Christian Unity. Each year the Christian’s from a particular country prepare service and daily reflection materials and this year’s service was prepared by an ecumenical team from the West African state of Burkina Faso (formerly French Upper Volta and then on independence the Republic of Upper Volta). The theme chosen was ‘You shall love the Lord your God… and your neighbour as yourself’ (Lk 10:27) the material being based on the Parable of the Good Samaritan.

This parable is of course one of the best known passages of Scripture, yet one that never seems to lose its power to challenge indifference to suffering and to inspire solidarity with those who are marginalised or outcast. It’s a story about crossing boundaries and emphasises the bonds that unite the whole human family regardless of race, creed, religion, ethnicity and so forth.

In choosing this passage for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, the churches of Burkina Faso invited us to join with them in self-reflection as they (and we) consider what it means to love our neighbour in a world riven with war and conflict, where there are many people displaced or persecuted. Communities in the UK may be less vulnerable to the sort of acts of mass violence that there have been recently in Burkina Faso, but there are still many living with the memory and/or the threat of serious violence, centred on issues of identity and belonging. 

Ecumenical services were held in St Finnbarr’s on Monday 22nd and in St Andrew’s on Wednesday 24th January, prayerful events that demonstrated a visible unity of local Christians. In these services people from across denominational boundaries reflected on the fact that there are also groups within our own communities, including people from ethnic minority backgrounds, people seeking asylum and others who for one reason or another are marginalised and who feel particularly vulnerable to misunderstanding, hostility and even violence.

Loving our neighbours as ourselves is something that we should all reflect on regularly, especially during Lent and in particular the question: “and who is my neighbour?”

Blessings
James

Bishop Mark’s Christmas Message 2023

sheumais Pastoral Letter, Reflections

Glory to God in highest heaven, and on earth, peace to all in whom God delights.

So sang the angels as they told the shepherds of the birth of Jesus.  Across the world those words are proclaimed in nativity plays and carol services; in places filled with joyful worshippers, excited by the festivities past and yet to come. But they are also proclaimed on battlefields and in refugee camps. They are heard in Israel and Palestine, in Russia and Ukraine and in the darkest places in our own communities. They are heard by people who have little to be excited about or to look forward to.

Yet in all these places it is the same message: the message of Peace, the Christmas message of Peace on Earth. Many of those who gather to listen to the Christmas story are seeking the same thing, a place and time of peace.

Too often those same people find themselves caught up in conflict, poverty and loneliness, yet all are those in whom God delights for God delights in creation, in us and in the wonders that we perform.

So I ask that we consider what we do this Christmastide. Do we hear the angels cry, then smile and drop off back to sleep around the campfire, or do we get up and go to find the Christ child? Do we put the call for peace into action? Do we gather with Jesus and demand justice and security for all? For let me assure you, God delights in all of us, God reveals that in his love for us through the life, death and resurrection of the child we gather to celebrate Christmas.

Last Christmas we prayed for those caught in conflict in Ukraine, and one year on, we pray for them again, and this time they are joined in our prayers by those whose lives are under constant threat as war wreaks its terrible toll in the Middle East; in the Holy Land. We pray for a permanent ceasefire there, and call on our leaders to see that peace is the only way forward, while the war they pursue or facilitate will only deepen the wounds.

Against that backdrop, how can we rejoice at this time, when there is so much suffering? But rejoice we must, as we retell the story of the love that came down to us, and all the time remembering that we are called not simply to listen to the angels but to respond, to be the peacemakers, in our homes, in our communities and in our hearts.

God bless you and may you rejoice this Christmastide wherever you are.

Blessings
+Mark

Christ in the Rubble

sheumais Reflections
Crèche, December 2023, Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church, Bethlehem. Photo: Rev Munther Isaac

As we prepare for Christmas, we might wish to reflect on this image of the ‘Nativity Scene’ at the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem and also words from the Anglican Church in the Middle East and closer to home the SEC Palestine Group.

Archbishop Hosam Naoum, the Anglican Primate of the Province of Jerusalem and the Middle East, has launched a Christmas and Advent appeal for children and families in the Holy Land who are in urgent need.

In his Advent Pastoral letter, Archbishop Naoum has written:

“As our beloved brothers in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, I invite you to join the 2023 Advent and Christmas Project as a means of living into the true meaning of Christmas by giving to those in need in the Holy Land. This Christmas Season we aim to bring smiles to the faces of as many children as possible, as well as support to struggling families. And so we would welcome and greatly appreciate your love, support, and generous contributions towards charities working to provide support for needy families at Christmas.”

“Due to the current situation in our beloved Holy Land and the heartbreaking scenes that have shattered our hearts, we have decided this year to limit our celebrations to prayers, liturgies and carols within our churches.”

“In a spirit of solidarity within the Body of Christ, I invite you to join us in this discipline by reflecting on the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ more than two thousand years ago, as well as on the conditions prevailing in the land at that time.” He went on to say that “they were no better than the circumstances here today.”

Archbishop Hosam Naoum

The Scottish Episcopal Church Palestine Group has written:

“As Christmas approaches, we cannot allow our celebrations to divert attention from the unrelenting carnage being perpetrated in Gaza and the West Bank. The sentimentality of tinsel and baubles must not be allowed to obscure our apprehension of the infant Christ, born in the squalor of a stable, his life threatened before it had begun by the gratuitous violence of a bloodthirsty and repressive tyrant. The commercialization of Christmas, and the parody of Santa Claus which debases Christian charity, must distract us neither from the suffering of hungry and traumatized children nor from the example of St Nicholas of Myra.“

“Our worship will lack authenticity and integrity if those who are suffering are not held before God in prayer, and if that prayer is not reflected in the ways in which we spend money and decide what goods to purchase for loved ones or to consume ourselves. We need each to consider whether donations to charities bringing aid to the afflicted are not more urgent, and a clearer sign of human love in practice, than festive over-indulgence, and gifts to family and friends which may be of very transient value. We need also to consider whether our purchases enrich those who profit from the suffering of others.“

Scottish Episcopal Church Palestine Group

St John of the Cross – “Dark Night of the Soul”

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Today is the Church’s commemoration of St John of the Cross.

Zurbarán – John of the Cross – 1656

On a dark night,
Kindled in love with yearnings
–oh, happy chance!–
I went forth without being observed,
My house being now at rest.

In darkness and secure,
By the secret ladder, disguised
–oh, happy chance!–
In darkness and in concealment,
My house being now at rest.

In the happy night,
In secret, when none saw me,
Nor I beheld aught,
Without light or guide, save that which burned in my
heart.

This light guided me
More surely than the light of noonday
To the place where he (well I knew who!) was awaiting me–
A place where none appeared.

Oh, night that guided me,
Oh, night more lovely than the dawn,
Oh, night that joined Beloved with lover,
Lover transformed in the Beloved!

Upon my flowery breast,
Kept wholly for himself alone,
There he stayed sleeping, and I caressed him,
And the fanning of the cedars made a breeze.

The breeze blew from the turret
As I parted his locks;
With his gentle hand he wounded my neck
And caused all my senses to be suspended.

I remained, lost in oblivion;
My face I reclined on the Beloved.
All ceased and I abandoned myself,
Leaving my cares forgotten among the lilies.

“Dark Night of the Soul” John of the Cross (translated by Edgar Allison Peers)
Christ of St John of the Cross – Salvador Dali – 1951

Pope Francis’ message to COP28

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Choose life, choose the future!

Although Pope Francis was unable, on the advice of doctors, to be in Dubai to deliver his message in person, his hard-hitting message was delivered on his behalf by Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin.

In it he said:

“Our world has become so multipolar and at the same time so complex that a different framework for effective cooperation is required. It is not enough to think only of balances of power… It is disturbing that global warming has been accompanied by a general cooling of multilateralism, a growing lack of trust within the international community, and a loss of the “shared awareness of being… a family of nations”… It is essential to rebuild trust, which is the foundation of multilateralism.“

“This is true in the case of care for creation, but also that of peace. These are the most urgent issues and they are closely linked. How much energy is humanity wasting on the numerous wars presently in course, such as those in Israel and Palestine, in Ukraine and in many parts of the world: conflicts that will not solve problems but only increase them! How many resources are being squandered on weaponry that destroys lives and devastates our common home! Once more I present this proposal: “With the money spent on weapons and other military expenditures, let us establish a global fund that can finally put an end to hunger” and carry out works for the sustainable development of the poorer countries and for combating climate change.“

“It is up to this generation to heed the cry of peoples, the young and children, and to lay the foundations of a new multilateralism. Why not begin precisely from our common home? Climate change signals the need for political change. Let us emerge from the narrowness of self-interest and nationalism; these are approaches belonging to the past. Let us join in embracing an alternative vision: this will help to bring about an ecological conversion, for “there are no lasting changes without cultural changes”“

Pope Francis made this appeal to the delegates:

“To all of you I make this heartfelt appeal: Let us choose life! Let us choose the future! May we be attentive to the cry of the earth, may we hear the plea of the poor, may we be sensitive to the hopes of the young and the dreams of children! We have a grave responsibility: to ensure that they not be denied their future.”

You can read the whole of the Pope’s message here.