on kindness

One of this summer’s best-selling books was Humankind: A Hopeful History. It argues that, far from being pre-programmed to be self-centred, the human instinct tends towards kindness and collaboration. Archbishop Desmond Tutu makes a similar point in his book Made For Goodness. If we are created in the image of God, and God is good, then surely goodness is at the core of our being?

Somehow, though, our attention gets drawn towards people who behave badly or violently, creating a skewed impression about humanity. Newspapers are seldom filled with stories about the acts of generosity, self-sacrifice or friendship towards strangers, that make up normal everyday life.

Humankind recounts some research that suggests many troops sent into armed conflict try to avoid firing their weapons. During the American Civil War, men purposely took as long as possible to reload their muskets. One was founded to have loaded up to 23 balls down his muzzle to appear busy. In WW2 an historian accompanied a US battalion. He determined that only 15-25% of servicemen had fired their weapon in a fierce assault on a Pacific island. Many courageously put themselves on the front line and risked their own lives, but drew back from killing others.

We are told that war is part of human nature. But what if it isn’t? What if there’s another way, where nations settle their differences through collaboration and peace-building? A way that is in tune with humanity’s tendency towards kindness, and the example of Jesus Christ.

on being a church named after all the saints

Today is All Saints Day which has a special significance for us here at St Anne and All Saints. We are a church named after the witness and example of all those people of faith who have gone before us; that ‘great cloud of witnesses that surrounds us’ and encourages us to run the race that the gospel inspires us towards (Hebrews 12:1-2).  

We inherited the ‘All Saints’ part of our name from a church that used to stand on the site of what is now the Lansdowne Green Estate. After that building was destroyed in WW2 the congregation moved to St Barnabas Church in Guildford Road. Around 1980 they merged with St Anne’s to become St Anne and All Saints, and some of the congregation that moved here then are still with us. All Saints Day is an opportunity for us to remember our history.

We would normally be celebrating today with a Patronal Festival and a church lunch. That’s obviously not possible in the current circumstances, but the saints in the kingdom of heaven can celebrate on our behalf with the food and drink Jesus promises at his table in Luke 22.29.

Meanwhile, perhaps we can use today to give thanks for all those saints who have been faithful to Christ in this corner of London since 1793, and from whom we have inherited the responsibility of sharing the good news of Jesus Christ through our words and mission.

on discovering solidarity in a pandemic

The events of this year have surely proven the benefits of solidarity, when differences are set aside to offer mutual support and care-giving as we journey through a period of collective testing. It took a pandemic to make our society willing to stand together, shoulder-to-shoulder with others of different opinions, outlooks and cultural values. We began to learn to appreciate those in the most overlooked jobs in our communities — the ones that kept us safe, fed, and healthy. For once, we could see that humanity was united, all in the same boat. When we face a common cause, it diverts us from making enemies of one another.

Solidarity is like living in a village of togetherness, where one seeks to pick up the other rather than knock them down; to collaborate rather than compete; to put ourselves aside and see others as more important (Philippians 2:3). In solidarity a hand of friendship reaches out into the unknown, willing to help and support those in trouble; to advocate for justice and truth.

In solidarity, we do not see the others as a threat, but an opportunity to learn and grow and discover — for our horizons to be stretched wider and stunning new vistas revealed amidst our tendency to insulate ourselves from difference and change. In solidarity we can discover our best selves, our gifts revealed as we offer them to others. 

It sounds a lot like Jesus’ idea of the kingdom of God.

on turning the church inside out

The noticeboard outside the church has a new poster on it. Instead of advertising some upcoming event at St Anne’s, or promoting our community activities, this poster has no words. It is simply a 3-foot high photograph of the inside of church.

This is a way of turning our building ‘inside out.’ Those in the parish who are unfamiliar with St Anne’s can now see what is behind our doors. I hope it will also be a sign that, in spite of the pandemic, we continue to worship God and to pray for our community. A banner, made by our Vauxhall Tide art group, is centre stage above the altar, bearing its message to ‘Show the love.’ 

Turning ourselves inside out is part of the Christian calling. The joy that we experience through our personal encounter with Jesus is not something to keep to ourselves; it should spill over into the rest of our lives as we live in him and seek to share that joy with others.

At our APCM today we will be reporting on St Anne’s year in 2019. That now seems a long time ago, given the events of 2020. Our challenge, as we look to the future, will be to find new ways of turning St Anne’s inside out and sharing the joy of the gospel to our neighbourhood.

on the magnificat

Luke 1.39-56

Mary, the mother of Jesus, goes to visit her older cousin Elizabeth. Both women are pregnant — one carrying a boy who will become John the Baptist, the other carrying the baby Jesus. Both pregnancies were unexpected and are part of God’s plan, not only for the two women but the whole of humanity.

In spite of their surprise at this turn of events, the women delight in their situation and see themselves as blessed. Elizabeth thought her child-bearing days were behind her, while Mary understands that her baby is a very special gift from God.

When Mary arrives at her cousin’s house and greets her,  Elizabeth’s baby leaps in the womb and, as our gospel reading from Luke tells us, she was filled with the Holy Spirit — a final seal of confirmation from God that this baby is part of his special plan, and also that the baby Mary is carrying is especially blessed.

And then Mary breaks into an extraordinary hymn of praise which, in turn, has become a daily prayer used by Christians around the world ever since. It is also a profound statement of theological belief. Mary’s hymn is known as the Magnificat, taken from the opening line, ‘My souls magnifies the Lord,’ which is another way of saying my soul blesses or glorifies God. It is an expression of praise. Our opening hymn, Tell Out My Soul, is based on it and, we heard it as well in our canticle this morning.

Mary’s song begins with what amount to almost a shout of sheer joy, in which she responds to the extraordinary circumstances both she and Elizabeth find themselves in. Mary’s faith is really strong and she can see that the hand of God is at work in her life. She responds with the acclamation, ‘My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour.’ (v46-7 NRSV)

Such a spontaneous outpouring of praise doesn’t come from an overnight encounter with an angel. It comes from already living a life that is tuned to God and is, in turn, more easily able to discern where God is at work.

Such a response can only be the outcome of a life that has been devoted to prayer, which in turn enables Mary to be open to God’s calling and alert to what she is being led to do. 

I can’t for a moment imagine that Mary, just a young teenager at this point, was someone who was simply going through the motions of religious life - attending worship, participating in the rituals, taking her place in the congregation. There is more to Mary than this. 

She is alive to God.

Only such a person could have been chosen to bear the Christ child to the world. Only such a one could respond with such deeply felt joy and rich wisdom as Mary does in her hymn of praise.

She also has an acute sense of how blessed she is. God has looked with favour on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me… (v.48-9) These are not the words of someone who is full of herself, but are rooted in genuine humility. Mary understands her place in the human order of things.

In a culture where women and children were very much regarded as second-class, Mary (on the cusp of adulthood herself) knows she is ‘lowly.’  She is also extremely poor, a resident of Nazareth, a town pretty much regarded by others as a bit of dump. It was certainly not a place where anyone of any real status would live.

No, Mary is the last person one might expect to be the recipient of divine favour. And she knows it. And yet it doesn’t prevent her from being ready to say ‘yes’ to God. Indeed, with all the disadvantages she faces in life she is still able to count her blessings, knowing that God does not show favouritism in the way that humans do.

2000 years later, we still live in a world where many societies and institutions will favour you provided your face fits — the right gender, accent, appearance, connections, ethnicity. This may be the human way, but it is not God’s way, so when we open our hearts to God, he will work in us, bless us and draw us closer to himself, regardless of our station in life.

Mary, I think, understands that this is the only favour that matters. God’s favour. His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation (v50). In other words: ‘God’s mercy flows in wave after wave on those who are in awe before him’ (Luke 1.50 MSG). This is what it takes to be the recipient of God’s favour, but for many there are significant obstacles to receiving it.

Those who are in awe of themselves, self-satisfied, filled with pride or a sense of entitlement will find it hardest to encounter such mercy. God, Mary proclaims, ‘has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts’ (v51). It is only when we set ourselves aside that we can instead turn our admiration in the direction of the only one worthy of it, and receive the benefit of doing so — peace of mind, an encounter with grace, an experience of love without conditions attached.

And then Mary says something that will be a feature of the teaching of Jesus when he is an adult, namely that the priorities of the Kingdom of God are the reverse of the way humans tend to behave. God has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty (v52-3).

Unlike human behaviour, it is the way of God to reach out and touch the lowliest in society — those who have been disadvantaged by birth, by their position in society, by economics or politics. God’s way, Mary is saying, is to restore those who have been overlooked by others to spiritual union with himself, and all the benefits that brings. 

We see God’s upside-down ways at work in the birth of Jesus. C.S. Lewis writes, ‘The same divine humility which decreed that God should become a baby at a peasant-women’s breast, and later an arrested field-preacher in the hands of the Roman police, decreed also that he should be preached in a vulgar, prosaic and unliterary language.’

The first disciples of Jesus were not drawn from the upper echelons of society, those with power, position and honour. They were working folk, living a hand-to-mouth existence to feed themselves and their families. They didn’t speak posh. The language that spread the gospel of Jesus was in the wrong accent and the vulgar slang of the alleys. Their table manners were not refined. Some of them had previous form as swindlers or prostitutes. 

These are who God chose to be his first ambassadors.

For Christians over the centuries it has continued to be in serving the least well off members of society, the folk that respectable people overlook, that Christ is most closely encountered. Mother Teresa of Calcutta, now Saint Teresa, said, ‘The most terrible poverty is loneliness, and the feeling of being unloved.’  

The hymn writer Samuel Crossman writes of God’s love as, ‘Love to the loveless shown, that they might lovely be.’

The Magnificat ends with Mary seeing herself in the wider context of the ancient people of God: ‘He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants for ever (v54-5).’

One way of describing what the Bible is would be that it is the story of God’s people as they encounter and learn to understand God, from ancient times until the days of the first Christian churches.  Mary places herself in the context of this wider picture. She does not carve out a starring role for herself, but sees herself as one part of that bigger story.

This too is a sign of humility, when we can see our own lives as part of something greater. Rather than placing ourselves at the heart of our life story, we place ourselves in relation to God and to Christ Jesus.

For good reason, then, the Magnificat has continued to be a prayer for Christians through the centuries. Pray it every day. Take it into your hearts. Allow yourself to be shaped by it and liberated by it. Let is direct you to the work in life that truly matters. Cultivate the humility and God-centredness of Mary so that, one day, you too may find yourself spontaneously proclaiming: My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my saviour. 

Amen.

on living the resurrection #2

Acts 4.32-35; 1 John 1.1-2.1; John 20.19-31

You may have finished the last of your Easter eggs already, and the shelves in the supermarket where they were stacked for sale are now full of barbecue charcoal and picnic wear. But for the Church, Easter continues to be celebrated during the 50 days between Easter Day and Pentecost.

The first believers had such a powerful encounter with Christ after his death that they were changed by it. They discover a new life in him, and their experiences have continued to inspire believers through the centuries. Our readings today offers us insights into what this new life looked like.

We start with St Thomas. Poor Thomas, famous for doubting the resurrection of Jesus, when surely all he did was say what any one of us would in similar circumstances. ‘I’ll believe it when I see it.’ When he, too, experiences the presence of Jesus alive to his faithful fellow disciples, then he believes. ‘Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed,’ Jesus says.

What Thomas is not willing to accept is the testimony of other believers about the transformation that Jesus brings to their lives. And they are transformed. This rag-tangle band of rough and unsophisticated folk, who have previously been chastised by Jesus for their lack of faith, their slowness to grasp his teaching and their inability to follow the simplest of instructions (‘Watch and pray’) begins to coalesce into faithful followers who find themselves powerfully changed by all they have experienced.

For us, the experiences of fellow Christians has an important role to play in as they share with us what Jesus means to them and how they have experienced new life, a changed life, in him. Our faith is not simply passed on to us through the Bible, but also two millennia of Jesus’ followers testifying to how a life centred around him has brought them a fuller and deeper life.

One of the lovely things about our Lent course this year, as we’ve read various books of the Bible, has been to discuss our reactions to them as well as to open up and share some of the spiritual experiences we’ve had as followers of Jesus.

So one of the hallmarks of the Church since the earliest of times has been to share the impact of our encounters with Christ, and wrestle together with the challenges of faith and his calling to serve God in our lives.

Secondly, today’s reading from the book of Acts shows us another remarkable effect of the early Christians experiencing the presence of Christ in the their lives:

‘All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own... there was no needy person among them...’
— Acts 4.32,34 (NIV)

The first Christians are so dramatically changed by Jesus that they gave up their individualism and self-interest to share a common life. The impact of experiencing Jesus’ presence was to put themselves and their own desires aside, perhaps because they understood that the body of Christ was most fully experienced in the fellowship and unity of a community of believers who were of one heart and mind.

This is still the model for the Church, that when we encounter Christ in our worship, our scripture readings, our personal prayer lives and in breaking bread together, we become united, single-minded in serving Jesus by loving God and caring for each other and the wider world.

Finally, our other reading today, from the first letter of John, points us to another impact of encountering Christ — cultivating an honesty and humility about who and what we are. It is so easy in life to delude ourselves, in order to impress or be accepted by others. But God requires us to drop the pretences. New life in Jesus can only be experienced when we are willing to be truthful about ourselves. John writes:

‘If we say that we share in life with God and keep on living in the dark, we are lying and not living in the truth. But if we live in the light, as God does, we share in life with each other. And the blood of his Son Jesus washes all our sins away. If we say that we have not sinned, we are fooling ourselves, and the truth isn’t in our hearts. But if we confess our sins to God, he can always be trusted to forgive us and take our sins away. If we say that we have not sinned, we make God a liar, and his message isn’t in our hearts.’
— 1 John 1.6-10 (CEV)

Spiritual growth and maturity comes from personal examination and self-knowledge. It means facing up to those areas of our life where we’ve been kidding ourselves and others. When we are able to be honest with God about ourselves, it follows that we can be more honest with one another, which in turn builds the kind of unity and fellowship that the early Christians experienced.

When they discovered that Jesus would always be present to them, the early believers were transformed. They shared their stories about how Jesus had changed them for the better, as Christians around the world still do, and bless each other by doing so. They became one body, united in heart and mind, sharing their possessions so that no one need do without. And they cultivated a self-awareness, an honesty and humility about themselves, because they were confident in the grace and forgiveness of God.

This is the faith into which little Zac will be baptised today. His baptism is also an initiation into the church, which continues to aspire to the example of Christ and his early followers.

We pray that he, too, will come to know union with God and the presence of Jesus in his life, through prayer, scripture and communion. As a community of faith, we stand together with him, his parents and godparents in affirming that we will do all we can to help him encounter Christ for himself.

Zac hasn’t had the easiest start in life, but as he grows stronger and healthier it is our hope that he grows to know for himself the love of God, the gentle leading of Jesus and the companionship of the Holy Spirit as he grows into his best self.

on living the resurrection #1

Easter Day 2018

Isaiah 25.6-9; Acts 10.34-43; John 20.1-18.

Alleluia, Christ is risen.
He is risen indeed. Alleluia.

Now what?

No, really. Now what?

We proclaim these words with ease, but what do they mean for us? He is risen indeed. But what now?

After all, Easter is not the commemoration of a long dead saint, but a celebration of our relationship with a living God through the risen Christ; who in his life, death and resurrection completed the work of bridging the gap between God the Father and humanity. Through Jesus, God has become accessible to us without our failings and shortcomings getting in the way. This is why on Easter Day we shout ‘Alleluia.’

The spiritual union with God that Jesus has made possible is, for us, utterly transformational, not just to our personal lives but in firing us up to be agents of change who can transform the world around us. This is what it means to be ‘Church’: we are the bearers of Christ to the world around us, and when we channel our own personal relationship with Jesus into our collective activities as a congregation, we become turbo-charged with the explosive energy with which Christ burst from the tomb.

So the first answer to the ‘Now what?’ question is that we rejoice — re-joice: to feel joy again — at the new life Christ has given us, and to recover that sense of personal and collective transformation that is offered to us by faith.

In the gospel accounts of the death of Jesus, it is the women who move towards the cross, and confront the consequences of Jesus’ death for themselves, while the men retreat. It is the women who first discover the good news of the risen Christ, as they visit the tomb to tend the body of their Lord.

Where, I wonder, do you place yourselves in this narrative? With the cautious male disciples, backing away when things get a bit tricky, needing to debate and discuss what is going on, weighing up this and that before committing to a course of action? Or with the women who stand by Jesus, even when it appears that all is lost. It is those who remain loyal to Christ who first discover the joy of the new life he brings.

When the women go to the grave of Jesus to tend his body it is an act of collective defiance. Robin Meyers writes:

…women went to the gravesite to perform funeral rituals… This would not be unusual or unique [at the time] but they did this for Jesus in defiance of Roman prohibitions against just such rituals, especially for the victims of crucifixion.

Why was this dangerous? Why was it forbidden? Because to give a proper burial to the victims of execution, and then to have public ceremonies of grieving, was to spoil Rome’s intended effect. The empire’s message went far beyond “King of the Jews.” [Crucifixion] was also Rome’s way of making a person and everything he stood for, “disappear.” The real message was: “Behold a nobody who has come to nothing and now is nowhere… You people need to go home now. It’s all over.”

Yes, of course it was.

Except it wasn’t.

It was the women who resisted first, defying Rome through their graveside vigils. It was the women who brought food, broke bread, and raised the spirit of the Beloved — perhaps even giving us a model for the Eucharist… The church was born as an act of collective defiance, and it prospered as a community of resistance. Easter is not just the sound of a solitary bird singing after a thunderstorm… It is the Stone of Hope, covered with nail prints, and rolled away with tears. This is the Easter message: Rome said no. God said yes.

So the second answer to the ‘Now what?’ question is that we as a church must strive to recover this dynamic, radical and subversive faith that stems from the resurrection of Jesus. God did not come among us in human form simply to propagate some anaemic middle-class culture of niceness. Jesus came and immersed himself in the worst problems of the world: suffering, mental illness, disability, poverty, hunger, prostitution and, finally, death.

The risen Christ challenges us to look at our world and tend the places of desolation that need to experience some kind of resurrection for themselves. Where can we help to restore life to situations that appear to be dying? Where in our world, our community, workplace, public life, business or political world is in need of God’s touch to renew and restore it?

Where are the situations of hate, injustice, or intolerance in which powerful people use their position to manipulate or coerce others? The places of abuse against children, women, young men? Where are the hard, cracked places that yearn for an outpouring of God’s love to bring new life out of the dry soil of despair?

They are everywhere.

Read the newspapers, watch the news, look at what is happening in your neighbourhood. The challenge is that there seem to be so many problems, so much depressing news, its hard for us to know where to begin.

And its easy to feel detached from being able to understand or take meaningful action on the problems of our community or the wider world, especially when so much care and compassion has been outsourced to professionals, leaving us bewildered about what the right thing to do is, or how to engage appropriately with such situations.

But do not believe for a moment that you are powerless.

We have a voice, we can make a contribution. However small our individual actions, they gather and accumulate with the small actions of others to gain momentum and create a force for change. This is one of the ways that congregations can use their collective power, and when added to that of other churches and agencies, can make a profound impact.

I want to mention just one situation where it is easy for us to feel helpless but where, in fact, there is much we can do.

Syria.

There has been civil war in Syria now for seven years. Hospitals are bombed, neighbourhoods destroyed, children massacred. 400,000 people have died. 4 out of every 5 Syrians now live below the poverty line.

11 million people have fled their homes, 5 million of whom have gone abroad to find safety. 1 million of those have requested asylum in Europe.

And we look on, appalled. What is happening in Syria is nothing short of a holocaust that is annihilating innocent people who are shouting for the world to listen and take action — people who are yearning for a resurrection amidst the death that unfolds around them daily.

God hears their calls and knows their suffering. What is God doing to help Syria? Many Syrians are Christians — why does God not intervene and bring about peace?

What if it is the people of God, the ones who already know about the power of a resurrection that brings new life to barren places, upon whom God is waiting to act?

St Teresa of Avila famously wrote:

Christ has no body now on earth but yours; no hands but yours; no feet but yours. Yours are the eyes through which the compassion of Christ must look out on the world. Yours are the feet with which He is to go about doing good. Yours are the hands with which He is to bless His people.

What can we do for Syria? Pray. Agitate for political action. Sign the petitions. Join the protests. Become informed by choosing your news sources carefully. Talk about it with family and friends. Donate money. Raise money.

One of the charities we support at St Anne’s is Christian Aid, which is actively involved in supporting Syrian refugees. Through their partnership with organisations in Lebanon they are ensuring that child refugees from Syria can not only continue their education but can access psychological support to come to terms with their traumatic experiences. They have been supporting refugee women from Syria, some of whom have been terribly exploited. In northern Iraq, Christian Aid is supporting Syrian refugees with vocational training so that they can find ways to make a living. And in Syria itself, Christian Aid is supporting partners providing hot meals to people who have been displaced from their homes following bombing.

That’s why we are participating in the Circle the City event next month, to help raise £500 to support Christian Aid in all its work, not just in Syria but in 36 other poverty hotspots around the globe. (There will be further information about how you can sponsor us online on St Anne’s Facebook page shortly).

The question, ‘Now what?’ is one we must keep at the forefront of our minds. Our new life in Christ is not a gift that we are given to keep for ourselves. It is for sharing. Inspired by the example of Jesus, we are called to reach out and bring healing, restoration and peace to the desolate places that need an outpouring of God’s love.

Christ is risen indeed. Now what?