Transgressive fragments: crusts of exile, hope and unity ... a sermon

Transgressive fragments: crusts of exile, hope and unity

Sermon preached on 5 September 2011 at the Ecumenical Centre, Geneva

Texts:

Exodus 12:39; Matthew 13:33

(This text is unabridged and rather longer than the preached version!)

Two philosophical introductions

Three fragments

and something that may be a sermon ...

“I chose to work on the writing of Paul Ricoeur because of his insistence on rediscovering a joyful ecumenism” said Beate Bengard at a lunchtime conversation hosted by the LWF’s department of Theology and Studies just two weeks ago. I was moved by her passion at Ricoeur’s thought, perhaps all the more so since I had just bought a book of the final fragments of his writings called “Lebendig bis in den Tod” - to live right up to and right in to death, would be possible translations, but perhaps a freer and better translation would take up Christian Aid’s slogan of “we believe in life before death”.

While listening to Beate I thought of the work of another philosopher and theologian, the Canadian, Grace Jantzen, who was a Quaker. In her work she pushed for a thorough-going non-violent philosophy of religion, based on natality rather than on mortality. Unlike Ricoeur she did not have the privilege of living into old age. Her series on Death and the Displacement of Beauty in Western Philosophy remained unfinished following her untimely, early death. Yet her work and witness remain natal.

So these ideas of joy and giving birth to a new creative future frame some of the background to what I try to share this morning, perhaps particularly as we move this week towards the 10^th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

Three fragments

In a concentration camp a father stands wailing next to the body of his dead son. He came quickly when they told him, now he screams in frustration because someone else managed to take his dead son's bread ration before he could. Dehumanized by a desperate system he grieves not for his son but for missing an extra ration of bread. Kyrie eleieson

The 14th century was a time of famine in southern England. Historical documents show that when the famine was at its worst the landlords made more profit. It's a story that may sound all too familiar given speculation on food prices in our own time.

During that famine the abbot of St Alban's Abbey - no doubt worried because he was losing his part of the tythe - ordered that the small milling stones, the quirn stones, be removed from everyone's house. He then built a patio with them. While the peasants could no longer mill small amounts of grain for personal consumption at least the Abbot had a patio.

The church's preferential option for the poor came along only a few centuries later.

More recently Globethics published a book entitled "Corruption free churches are possible"… kyrie eleison

An overweight middle aged woman refugee sits in the office of a British MP, she comes back day after day until he agrees to sign the papers allowing her brother right of entry to the UK. She knows her English isn't very good, she even understands that this is "not quite the done thing", she also knows she has nothing to lose. Her only child, a daughter, had died suddenly at the age of 13 just a year earlier. Helene Hurwitz-Stranz was a determined and tenacious woman. Her brother, his wife and their two teenage children arrived in Britain in April 1939, today would have been her brother's, my grandfather's, 121st birthday. Even with feisty defenders millions like him then were not so fortunate, neither are millions today. He was a fragment. Justice and dignity just a matter of arbitrary luck. Today the UK government claims as a virtue the need to balance net immigration. Kyrie eleison.

So now perhaps for an attempt at a sermon.

Just occasionally on hot summer nights when we sleep with the windows open I am woken by an exquisite and enticing fragrance. It's not often that a smell wakes you and makes you want to get out of bed in the morning but this does. It is the smell of the baguettes baking and the croissants crisping up from our local boulangerie. And it is glorious! (Though rather dangerous for the hips!)

This morning the fragment from the gospels that we reflect on is about the stage in breadmaking that precedes the wondrous smell of baking. It's a beautiful, if for us perhaps rather old-fashioned image, not of freeze dried or industrial yeast but of natural leaven raising large quantities of flour. Leaven works more slowly than yeast or baking powder but it transforms the flavour of the loaf more thoroughly, some say it even makes the flour more digestible. The best French bakers use "levain" - leaven or sourdough for their bread and not yeast or "levure", real baguette à l’ancienne should be crisp but slightly sour on the inside.

The parable gives us an image where the kingdom of God is growing in hidden yet glorious ways, we are offered a vision of God's promise where gentleness, joy, reconciliation and respect, justice and stewardship, care and peace are the sourdough kingdom values, raising the dough with authenticity and integrity.

For those of us working in ecumenical affairs this gospel fragment offers perhaps also a glimpse of oneness in the future potential loaf, we could all share in together. A wonderful vision of the oikoumene.

And well I could end there, but I'm sorry to disappoint you, we have a little way to go yet ...

As is so often the case with the parables of Jesus the riddler there is something more complex, cryptic, playful and challenging going on than might at first seem to be the case.

The word krypto is even there in the Greek – even if modern English translations lose that sense – the woman hides the leaven in the flour. Is God’s kingdom about subterfuge, about transgression and by a woman? Is that the only way the kingdom will grow? Is Jesus simply saying: open your eyes to signs of the kingdom taking place in the everyday life of the homes around you. The kingdom is just like bread rising and that happens every day…

The bread of the Exodus, the bread of liberation, had no leaven in it. Today a Jewish household once a year will clear out all traces of old yeast and leaven, a ritual and practical break with the past.

Setting out into the desert and dependence on God's grace meant leaving the leaven of servitude and slavery behind and living with the unleavened, tooth-breaking bread of exile and with the manna which the early morning dew provided.

Perhaps it’s no surprise then that amongst those desert wanderers and their descendents there were so many murmurings and yearnings about returning to the real food, the fleshpots of Egypt.

Over the centuries the spiritual unleavened bread representing liberation came to be prized above the everyday leavened bread, leaven is even judged as corrupt in parts of the biblical literature. There are warnings in the gospels and in Paul’s letters about the false or corrupt leaven of some teachers.

Yet as I return to Jesus’ clever and ambiguous parable I am struck by how it is the leavening, rising dough which symbolises God’s commonwealth. The dough rising speaks so much of hope, of the voiceless being heard, of the integration of the marginalised of the overcoming of oppression and the end of violence. The dough rising speaks of something hidden, marvellous and yet uncontrollable. This is what the kingdom is likened to - not to the baked bread.

As soon as the dough is baked – and those delicious smells come from the bakery - it becomes more fragmentary, less complete. Of course the bread actually feeds and nourishes but the rising dough is the subversive promise of all that potential feeding and sharing … all that might be possible.

Sometimes, very often even, I feel caught between promise and practicalities between the demands of the gospel and what I am able to do.

The French will vote with their feet, or tastebuds when it comes to buying baguette, preferring the bread of one boulangerie over that of another, though globalisation and the supermarkets are even eating away at this traditional discernment! I know I need to discern between the leaven of integrity and the leaven of corruption in my own life, in the life of the world. I know too that, however promising and full of possibility the rising dough may seem, the eschatological sourdough needs to be baked, the flavour of it needs to become real on peoples tongues.

And of course as soon as the hope filled dough is baked it becomes a fragment, bread that needs not to be hidden but to be shared, bringing straightforward nourishment, satisfaction and perhaps fellowship, justice or even life. Fragments of the flat liberating bread of exile, of mouldy prison rations or of fine brioche from the tables of the rich all have the potential to carry such hope.

Christ the leaven of our life offers the promise of liberation from cruelty and slavery of all kinds – the cruelty of famine, the slavery of materialism, or of abuse of power. That liberation is offered for both the oppressor and the oppressed.

The wholeness, vitality and natality of the rising dough, calls us to hold on to hope for all that is natal and joyful and hopeful as we try to bear witness and to live in such a way as to reconcile the fragments.

Perhaps the hidden leaven of God's kingdom will help us to develop an ecumenism of fragments which overcomes fragmentation; an ecumenism which believes in the sourdough values of the commonwealth, a bread which takes longer to rise, lasts longer and tastes better. A bread of true joy and not of manufactured bland niceness. The bread of tomorrow which feeds us today; its taste and texture speak to our hearts of life before death and of being one, if not at our divided earthly altars then surely at heavenly ones.

Jesus will not always put the fragments back together for us but he will say:

This is my body, broken, for you

This is my body, in fragments, for you

May the scales fall from our eyes and may all that is hidden and authentic within us bear the fruit of peace, joy and love which the Spirit wills for humankind and for the whole inhabited earth. Let us concentrate on that which creates and engenders.

Amen

Copyright (c) Jane Stranz/WCC

The garden at home ...

Over the past weekend I have been in Redditch, actually even in Astwood Bank, to spend a bit of quality time with my Mum and Martin to talk through wedding preparations. This is not really something they train you for at theological college - taking your mother's wedding. The event will take place at Emmanuel Church in Redditch - my home congregation and will be followed by a cream tea in the church hall and then fish and chips or curry for over 50 folk back at the house.
It is going to be fun and we all hope that this view will be part of it, however even if it rains we will have glorious day.
This view from the back step at my childhood home is one I can simply drink in for hours, these photos don't give you the full extent - this was a cloudy day. Often you can see all the way to the Malvern hills and on clear days even as far as the Black Mountains in Wales. I love the sense of space and the amazing sunsets.
Martin has been living in the house for just over 2 and half years. (When my mum announced his arrival in her life by telephone she said: "I have an added complication in my life" "ah" I replied you mean a man" .... in the ensuing conversation I said something daughterly like "Well just take things slowly" and Mum replied "it's a bit late for that!" hmmm ...) He is tenaciously transforming the garden - which is no easy task. Throughout my childhood the right hand border of the garden was lined with ancient rotting willow trees, all now coppiced or removed - as a result whole new horizons and views have been opened up.
My brother's bedroom at home overlooks this view - it was the room he was born in. My bedroom overlooked the main road and that is still the one I choose when I go home on my own. But the view out the back is part of me. I realised this last year when thinking about the view inspired me to write this sermon on the Mother tongue of ecumenism - a sermon that came almost fully formed in one of those rare moments of inspiration.
The view is perfect but changing, ancient but part of a very human landscape. Twenty years ago we put a big blue and white tent up at the bottom of the garden for our marriage. At the end of the day I was wandering barefoot around the garden hand in hand with Stephen. Very, very happy.
When I was a child the garden was much wilder than it is now, a place of great adventure, stinging nettles, ancient pigsties, treehouses and gooseberries, balckberries and apples to be picked.
Anyway for those who are interested here's the beginning to the sermon - quite fun to re-read it 18 months on ...

A room with a view
There is a wonderful view from the back bedroom of my parents' house. It was the room where my mother gave birth to my brother, less than a mile from where her own mother had given birth to her.
The view is of rolling fields and greenery, trees and hedges; in the distance 40 miles away are the Malvern Hills (not quite Mont Blanc or the Alps but beautiful nevertheless). Further away still and only to be seen on a clear day is a glimpse of another country the outline of the black mountains in Wales, and a reminder of a different and more ancient Celtic language, which the English language has pushed to the margins – just as the English language is pushing so many other languages to the margins these days.
This is the view my brother and I still sit on the back step to drink in on our rare visits home.
That view has hardly changed in our lifetime. It speaks to us of childhood and beauty. It is also a landscape we have simply always known, a landscape that seems to know and welcome us back into its beauty and our memories.
The view I love so much would probably still be recognisable to William Shakespeare who was born just 10 miles away. When I think of where I come from that greenery and stretching view come to mind straight away. I understand that landscape like I understand my mother tongue.
And yet …
These days when I think about "home" it's often an exercise in cognitive dissonance
Home is not just a long way away, though not as far as for many of you, but “home” is also to some extent a long time ago.
These days when I go back I often feel as if I'm in a foreign land - even though people all around speak the same language as me. I feel caught between Babel and Pentecost, which is why I've chosen those texts this morning.

Fragments of a translated Pentecost sermon and the mother tongue of resurrection values

This morning in Ferney three young people finished their catechism, two asked for confirmation, one has decided to wait for a while before asking for baptism in a few years time. Each of them chose Bible passages and confessed their faith. It was a good service and the sun shone for drinks in the garden afterwards. Over 14 years ago I baptised the two young women who confirmed, both come from mixed confessional and national backgrounds. Together with Bernard Millet the pastor, we led the service and presided at communion. I preached, as this is probably my last year helping with KT. The sermon was in French of course, what follows is a rather imperfect version in English. Dr B's comment was - you have become very French using your hands alot! He was also gracious enough to say that he thought it was a good sermon. Perhaps I was using my hands more because today I preached from notes rather than from a text, so I was rather freer. Strange, although I've advised at least two people to do this themselves in recent months, I don't always feel at home with it myself - but perhaps I feel more at home with it in French than in English.

Texts
Joel2:28-29 (interestingly this is chapter 3 in the French Bibles!)
²⁸ Then afterwards
I will pour out my spirit on all flesh;
your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
your old men shall dream dreams,
and your young men shall see visions.
²⁹ Even on the male and female slaves,
in those days, I will pour out my spirit.

Galations 5:22-26
22 By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, ²³gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things. ²⁴And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. ²⁵If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit. ²⁶Let us not become conceited, competing against one another, envying one another.

Today its my feast day - and I know you all thought it was your party - Pentecost after all is the feast of translators and interpreters! Or perhaps it's actually the day the Holy Spirit makes all of us translators unemployed, after all that first Pentecost sermon was heard by everyone in their own language without any need for booths and headphones. So perhaps I should preach this morning en anglais, oder auf deutsch or maybe in a language like Arabic or Spanish that I don't speak at all and trust that everyone including me would be able to understand.
But I suspect we'd all be saying, along with our opening reading "what is the meaning of all this?"

Hmm what is the meaning of all this? What is Pentecost? It's a moving and turbulent story of hearts being touched with energy and understanding in the same way that those present were also touched by flames of fire. Pentecost is the grand finale of Easter and marks the end of the 50 days of Easter, the Spirit comes to breathe and embed the values of the resurrection into the lives of the first disciples, to breathe renewal and warmth and also to comfort and remind them of the true values of the resurrection.

One way of putting it is that the Spirit teaches them - and us - the mother tongue of gospel resurrection values. We read about those values in Paul's letter to the Galations : the gifts of the Spirit are love, peace, faithfulness, goodness, self control ...
When Christ rises from the dead he brings those values of the resurrection back with him from the grave - he doesn't come back saying to those who have tortured and crucified him "I'm going to get you". He doesn't seek to find those who did him such evil and nail them to a cross, nor does he ask his friends to do that for him. He comes across locked doors and says"peace be with you" he also says "receive the Holy Spirit".
These are the resurrection values the Spirit breathes into our lives, hoping that they will take root in us and guide our witness to the Risen One.
Two weeks ago I had just come back from Jamaica, despite rumours to the contrary I wasn't there on holiday, my employer the World Council of Churches organised an international meeting about peace, there were over a 1000 people from more than 100 countries for the meeting which had teh rather long name of International Ecumenical Peace Convocation - and you can imagine we certainly needed the interpretation booths there! People came together to discuss "just peace" - that might seem a strange sort of idea but even this week I've heard the idea of "just violence" being used by Hilary Clinton, saying violence against a "guilty" member of Al Quaida was justified. So much in our world justifies violence, makes it acceptable to us, yet Jesus' resurrection values are different - peace be with you he says.

If there was just one story to bring back from the Peace convocation it would be the story of the ordinary women in Liberia which we learned about through a film. These women helped through their concerted and long term prayer and action for peace to completely transform their country in Africa which had been suffering from a desperate and totally devastating civil war and dictatorship - men and boys caught up in war, forced to fight, women and children brutalised and raped. Their song was "We want peace now. Liberia is our home", their only arms white tshirts, creativity and tenacity. Praying across the Christian confessions, taking the prayer for peace to the Mosques and out onto the streets. Demonstrating next to the road where they knew the dictator would pass by, and not giving up.
The resurrection values of peace are not gained quickly or easily, but in place of a culture of totally acceptable violence these women, sang out and prayed out and went onto the streets for different values. We want peace now. Things are far from perfect in Liberia today, it remains a desperately poor country, but the absence of war has completely transformed the lives of all and left space for democracy and a different future. The women in Liberia dreamt and they acted upon their dream, the values of peace can become our mother tongue even in a war torn country.

The prophet Joel promises that young and old together will have dreams and visions, the servants and not just the ruling class. The Spirit is promised and shared out upon all. The resurrection values of peace, joy, faithfulness and love are not just for one generation but to be shared down the ages and across the ages. The Spirit of Pentecost pours into our hearts the mother tongue of understanding those values of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. It tries to put those other words on our lips, encourage our hands to other actions.
After Pentecost the church year moves into what it calls "ordinary" time - the Sundays often just have the word Pentecost and then a number after them. Today we can celebrate with the three of you who end your catechism this year, who confess your faith and ask for confirmation. You too will move into "ordinary" time - even though we will not see you at KT any longer we certainly hope to go on seeing you at church.
Somehow although it's not always easy to get out of bed on a Saturday morning we have managed to learn from one another and transmit some of these values of the resurrection to one another. It's not always easy across the generations to feel we speak the same language yet somehow across time Jesus' Holy Spirit has been whispering resurrection values in our hearts, teaching us to speak the language of peace and faithfulness, of joy and self control, of compassion and generosity.
On this last day of Easter let us celebrate our commitment to being transformed by the Spirit-given mother tongue of the values of the resurrection, and let's do that by saying together Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed! but in another language, in Greek - as this is a tradtion which has come to us ecumenically from the Orthodox churches:
Christos Anesti
Alithos Anesti
Christos Anesti
Alithos Anesti
Christos Anesti
Alithos Anesti
May we all learn to speak the Gospel mother tongue of resurrection values - peace joy faithfulness compassion self control
Amen

The risen Christ calls us to peace not to vengeance - Olav Fykse Tveit preaches at Webster Memorial United Church

Sometimes it's really worth making the effort to get out of bed early on a Sunday morning and yesterday was a good case in point. It was good to begin the 10 days of the IEPC worshiping with local people at their normal Sunday service. The tradition of dressing up to go to church is alive and well in Jamaica. Twenty years in France, where this really isn't the case, had made me almost forget this part of my own tradition of church going.

I was moved by the sermon preached by the WCC's general secretary, Olav Fykse Tveit. He really engaged with the congregation, blending humour about unity in diversity - recognizing the real differences between the Caribbean where tropical fruit juice is drunk and Norway where salt cod tends to the local speciality - with a powerful and heartfelt message about the true Christian values of righteousness, peace and joy.
He began by saying quite meditatively
"We are the church
We are the Kingdom
We are the World Council of Churches ..."
It is a sign of the united church to value righteousness, peace and joy as true fruits of the Spirit

He took Romans 14.11-18 as his text, encouraging the congregation to focus on joy, as this 3rd Sunday after Easter is called Jubilate, Rejoice!
This rejoicing is the gospel of resurrection which comes across locked doors in the person of the risen Christ breathing the words "peace be with you". "This tells us alot about how God calls us to just peace. The theme of just peace is not just something to discuss but it is a sign of the Kingdom of God and that fruit of the Spirit called joy. The risen Christ is present to bring justice and peace to the world as a sign.
Christ's presence brings with it a new reality of joy and peace. Despite the betrayal, humiliation, torture, pain and death that he has endured it is not with revenge that Christ comes back but with a true justice, he returns from death bearing the fruits of the kingdom. This is what he brings to the world through his presence.

Tveit then went on to speak about situations of war and peace in the world, mentioning in particular a visit in January to a minority church in Libya which had at that time particularly been praying for the Coptic martyrs of Alexandria
He continued by saying that the church is called to give witness to what is not seen, like a seed hidden in darkness, God's presence is alive. Pointing out that the WCC was not quite as old as Webster Memorial Church, he also made reference to the speech made by the then bishop of Oslo in the run up to the WCC's founding in 1948 "The Enemy divides, God unites". Reflecting on this Tveit then returned to the Romans 14 passage saying "We are created to be united, to be togehter." The text takes us further even than this towards accepting that God has created nothing that is unclean. It is we who make one another unclean.
We are here to be a signs of righteousness, justice and peace. God justifies us so we can bear witness to a unity of diversity, of difference. All of us are called to accept one another.

Getting to be 70 means we are still young enough to change while building on what those who went before. Change is possible. Another world is possible. To illustrate this Tveit told a favourite story of his mother who spoke of peace coming at the end of the German occupation of Norway. How her story of the day the peace came helped him to see pictures he had never actually seen, like the blackout curtains which had separated people and kept the light out burning in teh streets. The burning curtains were a clear sign of peace, not just a rumour. the story of peace also speaks clearly of the joy of something. People around the world carry such stories of peace and part of the practice of peace is to give and share them as signs to one another.
In any home life can be complicated, we can forget that peace also needs righteousness and joy.
"I believe the Holy Spirit calls churches to do everything we can together to witness to the reality of Christ's presence. There is no way of separating Christ from these values of justice, peace and joy."

Going through my (I should add imperfect) notes to type this up I realise that what moved me about yesterday's sermon was the very gentle but convinced weaving together of favourite themes the WCC's general secretary has preached about over the past 18 months. Tveit is keen to assert that justice joy and peace are the core Christian values. In all our talk about unity we must not separate ourselves from that. There were subtle but very clear messages about inclusivity and I think I am beginning to better understand the statement he sometimes makes when he says he doesn't believe in enemies. Here the idea received a bit more context for me and I was very struck by the idea of Christ coming back from the grave with the fruits of the Spirit. Justice, peace and joy are resurrection values with great capacity to unite us.
During the service yesterday there were also beautiful moments when a woman sitting close to me was more or less finishing the preacher's entences before he did and saying amen with real joy.
Worth getting up early on Sunday for.

Of tears, laughter and flowers ...

It is desperately hard to explain the personal pain one feels to someone else, and in some ways it is quite pointless yet of course entirely necessary. You can tell that one part of my reaction to the pain I myself feel comes from that British stiff upper lip school that doesn't let much hang out. The other part of me though speaks freely, perhaps too freely about how I feel. I can see how my pain shocks people, makes them step back and really - whatever their origins - hope that you will be well-mannered enough not to mention such distress again over the post lunch coffee. Hmmm ...
Today someone really saw my distress and didn't avoid it, he put his hands on my shoulders and showed compassion, he wasn't frightened by my pain. As that happened, I thought, thank God. It was quite a relief.
And then, as is the way of life, my stiff upper lip kicked in again and I decided I wouldn't write too much more about that side of things. Let's just say it's been a day when tears have threatened to dominate - even while I've been preparing budgets. It's a very strange state of affairs but oddly I've begun to realise too that just like when I have a cold I blow my nose, now too so long as I have enough hankies available, I can continue even if the computer screen looks a little blurry now and then.
Meanwhile, I also today heard a good and for me moving and invigorating sermon from my colleague Deenabandhu Manchala. Given that yesterday morning in church we had experienced one of the worst ever sermons, this morning really was a blessing. Bandhu spoke about how joy and the capacity to rejoice are signs both of resilience and of resistance. He preached on the text from Philipians 4.4 "Rejoice in the Lord always and again I say rejoice"

To be able to rejoice, to smile and be hopeful amidst fear, loss and adversity is a gift, a sign of resilience and of profound inner spiritual strength. It asserts that the spirit of life has the final word over the forces of death.

Listening to Bandhu preaching about the power and resources of joy I felt myself smiling and I also felt something of the Easter promise burning through into our Lenten reflections. I have often preached on "Easter laughter" but I had never take Philippians as my text. Lost in the pointless pain of depression it is easy, far too easy to forget joy and laughter, and their restorative resurrection values. I have been fortunate that throughout my own pain I have continued to be able to laugh and be joyful at least to some extent.

We can only rejoice and be happy when we have no fear. When violence is caused by the fear of the powerful, let us not preach non-violence to the victims, but in obedience to God, let us preach non-violence to the structures and cultures and to the agents of death and destruction. Let us call them to repentance, telling them to ‘rejoice in the Lord’, and not to fear and act violently, to submit themselves to God's sovereignty and peace. Let us therefore attempt to bring hope in the lives of the threatened through a discipleship of resistance, and transformation. Let us strive for justice and wait for peace to sprout and flourish.

Meanwhile we had some surprise visitors on Saturday afternoon who brought us flowers from the mountain top. It was an act of spontaneous pleasure and joy at having found such a perfect meadow on their part and we were the first people they knew on their way home. It was a lovely moment to see them standing there at the door, holding out the pretty posy pictured here, and to know with a smile on my face and a slightly sinking heart, that I had 10 minutes earlier decided to put off tidying the house for a little while longer ... aie! However, many who have experienced the untidy houses I have lived in may think that my levels of embarassment have perhaps not quite reached the required level for ensuring a tidy place!
The flowers from the mountain top will have faded and wilted by the end of the week but their meaning for me, the memory of their fragility and the smiles with which they were offered will remain. "Say it with flowers" the adverts used to say ... yet there was much that was unspoken in this small bunch of colour we received and which I placed in our favourite jug. So the yellow daffodils and the purple vetch speak for all that cannot be, for those things which cannot be said, for the deisre for joy even when this seems far off, for the promise that fear will truly be overcome.
For such small fragile yet powerful signs I give profound thanks.

Fragments of Advent understanding - a sermon

They held up a stone.
I said, "Stone."
Smiling they said, "Stone."

They showed me a tree.
I said, "Tree."
Smiling they said, "Tree."

They shed a man's blood.
I said, "Blood."
Smiling they said, "Paint."

They shed a man's blood.
I said, "Blood."
Smiling they said, "Paint."

copyright (c) Dannie Abse, Adapted from the Hebrew of Amir Gilboa, 1982

Bible Reading - Isaiah 42:1-4
Matthew 3:1-12
Fragments of Advent understanding - a sermon preached in the ecumenical centre chapel

First the bad news - Manoj and Hielke are travelling so you get me again …
and be warned, next year it will be different you will all be doing the prayers and the preaching!

And now for more bad news:
Sorry but Advent is not all about the cute little baby

So I offer you some fragments

In the knowledge that they will not make a perfect whole

In the hope that this incompleteness will leave room for some of your fragments too

Earlier this year I spent some time whispering into the ear of a delightful, charming and erudite man called Floribert Bahizire, a leading human rights advocate and Director of an NGO in the Democratic Republic of Congo called "La Voix des Sans-Voix pour les Droits de l’Homme"

Six weeks later in early June the world learnt of his and his driver's death in suspicious circumstances. The two of them treated like paint. Their humanity and blood denied.

And in Advent we read and hear Isaiah's words from the suffering servant:

"He will not break a bruised reed or quench a smouldering wick"

And I think oh really?

I hear my mother in law's voice saying to me that she really has had enough of all these prayers saying that God cares for all those who are suffering - "I don't think he does you know. And how does that help them, what is God doing?"

Hmmm…

We can all think of people like Floribert - the bruised reeds or smouldering wicks who have been snapped off or snuffed out or raped or beaten - we may even refer to some of them as martyrs or saints

And there are also those too numerous to mention or comprehend who have died in genocide, war, famine and injustice: Armenia, Cambodia, Rwanda, gulags, gas chambers, the disappeared

"He will not break a bruised reed or quench a smouldering wick he will faithfully bring forth justice."

Upholding human rights, upholding the humanity of humanity …seeking to bear witness not to paint but to the blood which courses in all of our veins. It is a painstaking and often dangerous task. Truth creates enemies.

And as I think about that challenge I think of the many times in my own life when I have been more on the side of paint than of blood. Advent is such a time of reflection, a time to contemplate judgement as well as the promise of joy.

Let me give you a small example from parish life in France. It was not a good day. The previous night's elders meeting had lasted until 1am, the morning's meeting of "les amis de l'orgue" - the friends of the organ - seemed to have resolutely decided to become the enemies of the pastor. I walked from my study out into the garden, in need of some springtime hope and as I got to the fruit garden my heart sank, there was the parishioner who "helped" (I use the term advisedly) with the garden with a large pile of twigs in front of her. I could see that they came from my gooseberry bushes which would now have no chance of bearing fruit.

Let's just say I wasn't happy and I let her know it.

She was probably the poorest member of the parish. After the failure of her marriage she had become addicted to antidepressants but had overcome that, her daughter was on methadone, she didn't have a garden of her own. And on this lovely sunny morning even the pastor was shouting at her.

"He will not break a bruised reed or quench a smouldering wick he will faithfully bring forth justice."

His winnowing-fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing-floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.

A further and final fragment
A friend is talking about the empty evening ahead while feeling lonely and exhausted after a heavy travel programme. She suddenly said, "I think I shall go home and pray." And I realised she hardly ever had the time or energy to pray and that having and making that time is also a privilege … do I use my privileged praying time well?
Centuries ago St Augustine said "without God we cannot, without us God will not". Prayer and ethics, spirituality and practice belong together
All of us are imperfect pilgrims trying to make those two ends meet.
Sometimes we ourselves are the bruised reeds and guttering wicks

He will not grow faint or be crushed until he has established justice in the earth;

Even when things are in fragments the Advent promise carries us forwards.
Because of and despite our limitations we continue to bear hope, to dare to believe

Last week Floribert's successor was here in Geneva, and is taking the work of his NGO for human rights in DRC forwards.

So here's the good news
It is all about the suffering servant baby
About God's vulnerability and choice of the insignificant stable rather than the pompous palace.
About God the almighty accepting even to be powerless and dependent.

In British folklore parents tell their children that babies are found underneath the gooseberry bush - (given how thorny gooseberry bushes are this may say something about British attitudes to sexuality). Two years after the pruning incident in my garden I came home to discover a basket of freshly picked gooseberries on my doorstep. There had been a bumper harvest but I had moved house in the meantime, someone else was harvesting from the fruit bushes I had planted.

We are called to prophetic anger at abuses that treat people like paint and pawns rather than flesh and blood.
But in Adventide we are called even more to be fragments filled with the promise of peace and justice, reeds and wicks pointing to the possibility, to the certainty of future fruit even if we will not ourselves be the harvesters.

For most surely, God's suffering One from the stable will enflame our hearts and redress all that is broken within us.
Amen

Copyright (c) Jane Stranz / WCC

Dealers in purple - a sermon

Well here is my sermon from this morning. I think I shall call it "dealers in purple". I enjoyed praeching this morning, despite my sinusitis. Sometimes things just work and this simple service marking the UN's day for the elimination of violence against women on November 25 worked well by re-using material from earlier in teh year but framing it differently

Psalm 1
Acts 16 11-15

Blessed are those who build community for they will be blessed with the future

So, Brothers and sisters, women and men
How are you feeling this morning?
Are you feeling happy - thank God it's Monday!
Like those who meditate God's law in Psalm 1 do you feel like a tree planted by a stream of water?

Perhaps not (particularly given how very cold it is in the chapel this morning)
Perhaps you are feeling fatigued
even at the beginning of the week
perhaps compassion fatigue has set in
or commitment fatigue
perhaps you are wary and weary of new campaigns and challenges.

More than 20 years ago in one of the most privileged environments in the world I experienced the awful complacency and cynicism compassion fatigue can create
I was studying theology at the University of Oxford and all students for church ministry that year were invited to an all day ecumenical seminar organized by Christian Aid (I’ll spare you the details of how much of an ecumenical achievement it was to simply get all of the denominations to agree to such a day.) We gathered for prayers, there were lectures and workshops on various issues linked to development and advocacy. All of the workshops were able to take place with one exception. Almost noone had signed up for the workshop on women and poverty - I still remember Michael Taylor then director of Christian Aid, challenging us pretty forcefully about both our understanding and our commitment. He faced us with our own smugness and complacency about political correctness. Across the world then as today, the poorest of the poor are women. Of course this doesn’t mean that there are not men living in abject poverty – unfortunately there are of course millions of men and boys suffering from the iniquities of poverty, injustice and war. For every unjustly poor man there is an even poorer woman.

A Monday morning meditation is not the place to remind you of the statistics, you can easily look them up on google yourselves. But it is not a coincidence that some of the key areas for achieving the millennium development goals have to do with women’s health and the access of girls to education.
Later this week the UN will mark once more the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against women. A reminder of one of the additional burdens women across the world bear.

However, before I continue in this perhaps rather ranting tone, I think I should remind myself of a couple of lines by one of my favourite poets and also invite all of us not to a rant but to a celebration:
The German poet Berthold Brecht wrote
"Even anger against injustice makes the voice grow harsh.
Alas we who wished to lay the foundations of kindness could not ourselves be kind."

Today I really don’t want my voice to grow harsh – not only because I’m nearly losing it thanks to my sinusitis. Today I want to point to the possibility and the reality of what we achieve as a community of women and men together. I don’t want to focus yet again on women as victims. I want much more to encourage us to commit to what we can do together as women and men.

Particularly this week when the World Communion of Reformed Churches and the World Council of Churches will mark the publication of a new book “In God’s Image From Hegemony to Partnership – a church manual promoting positive masculinities”


So with Fulata (on Friday) we looked for a positive female biblical role model who could speak to the community of women and men and we decided to choose the story of Lydia for this morning’s meditation.
The first person on the continent of Europe to become a Christian, to hear and believe in the good news is a woman – without her many of us here might never have become followers of Jesus Christ. She gave generations afterwards a future.

Lydia invites those with the message she believes in into her home, they are persuaded by her invitation.
She allows them close to her
She shares with them, together community is built

The evangelisers will move on

But one evangeliser will also stay put, in her own community, living out her baptism in her own place, converting those she comes into contact with through family life and business
Truly she is blessed with the future.

There was of course another reason Fulata and I chose Lydia
She was a dealer in purple 
Purple - the colour of the women’s movement,
the colour of nobility and royalty and riches
Was she a well off business woman or a poor worker selling on the dye she worked long hours to make? Scholars differ

When I think back to that ecumenical day in Oxford and particularly to the female colleagues I trained alongside from the Church of England, I admit to feeling a little sad and angry.

Not one of those women training with me can yet become a bishop and exercise the leadership of oversight in their church. When we were training together we still didn’t know whether they would be allowed to even become priests.
None of them can officially deal in purple yet … some have already retired before this will be possible for them.

(Perhaps I should add that I come from a church that doesn’t deal in purple for either men or women, those who exercise oversight have in recent decades included women. We did though ordain the first woman to the Christian ministry in Britain in 1917 – a year before women in that country had the vote. And just over two years ago we appointed the UK’s first woman church leader at the national level.)


All of us need to overcome fatigue and reinvigorate our commitment. One of the ways I do that is by reading detective fiction, issues seems to get resolved more finally than in some theological circles. I tend to feel that much of the best detective fiction is written by women. I was though surprised when re-reading one of my favourite authors Sara Paretsky - to find detective fiction also offering me encouragement and not just escapism:

"you must live in hope, the hope that your work can make a difference in the world."

Let us never fall into complacent fatigue
But let us never forget to celebrate what we are able to do together as women and men, men and women.

As I was thinking about some symbolic action we could all participate in together in this morning's service I realised that a really important practical thing we can commit to together would be to stand together as women and men for climate justice.

Annegret and I have prepared some of the posters and at the end of the service I invite you to hold the posters and take one another's photos with you mobile phones and cameras and then upload them to the campaign part of the WCC website as part of the photo petition. (or on facebook)
The posters read:
We Care for Creation
Climate Justice Now!
And this is my favourite, I think they used to say love your neighbour even when he plays trombone but this one says: Love your neighbour: Fight climate change

It is only by being together as the community of women and men who follow Jesus Christ that we will be able to combat climate change and so much else besides.
I pray that we may continue to build and celebrate that community.
In that way, bishops or not, we shall all exercise oversight and be dealers in purple, bearing witness to our baptism.

Blessed are those who build community
For they are blessed with the future

Amen

Knock knock - is God there?

Our wonderfully upbeat and authentic colleague Faautu Talapusi gave a bravura performance at worship this morning. It was a beautifully simply crafted service with readings from Psalm 121 and Luke 11:5-13. The idea of the neighbour knocking at night time on the door is what set Faautu writing her poetic sermon which was very much also performance art with each knock knock accompanied by knocking on the lectern:

Knock, knock…
Knock, knock…
The times I am facing are rough
The times I am facing times are tough

What I noticed now re-reading the sermon is that somehow as the poem progresses it is no longer an individual in distress knocking but somehow God knocking - hey notice I'm here, see how I try somehow to hold things together for you.

Knock, knock
Knock, knock…
God’s love is ever persistent and unconditional…for you and me

Read the full text here.

Thanks Faautu

A tough day for theology ...

My wonderful colleague Theodore Gill preached a bravura sermon again this morning - we must send him away for long weekends the beautiful Swiss scenery more often I sense ... it was an enlivening and thoughtfull way to begin our week:

A tough day for Theology. Much better P.R. for Science, which
apparently has now solved the riddle of Creation without an assist from a
Creator.
But I can’t help wondering whether the headline “Theology is
unnecessary, says Hawking” will go down in the annals of journalism with “The
end of history, says Fukuyama”.
You remember “the end of history”, just after the Berlin Wall came
down? But then, there was September 11, 2001 … And I also wondered: Whatever
became of humility? And whatever became of Thomas Kuhn?

Theo moved from reflecting on Toblerone to thinking about paradigm shifts and kept on repeating but whatever became of humility?

Is “Theology” necessary? I don’t know. I really don’t. I suppose it
depends on your goal.

But I do know that repentance is necessary. Humility is necessary.
Careful – “care-full” – thought is necessary.

And… Beauty is to be desired, and affirmed, wherever we find
it.

You can find the full text here.

"Are you joking God?"

A year ago our friend and colleague Suzanne died, she took her own life in moment of despair.
This morning we sang and prayed, lit candles and picked up grain seeds of hope. A colleague from Aotearoa sang a wonderful lament in Maori, other colleagues played flute and piano, read despite tears and emotions.
Nyambura Njoroge preached an extraordinary sermon from the heart. She had suggested preaching and chose powerful texts from Numbers and 2 Corinthians as her starting point. She spoke of a meeting of bishops in Africa of the despair some of them expressed about working for the kingdom of God. In particular she spoke of her own son's suicide, of Suzanne, of her daughter's depression. Facing such suffering she said made her ask "Are you joking God?"
Gently, calmly, without notes but with humour and with a conviction that comes from faith and hope, she preached for herself and for us. Despair cannot have the last word, we have to learn to speak the truth to power - that truth has to be addressed to ourselves before we address that truth to others. I wish I had recorded Nyambura preaching but I'm glad there were so many of us there to hear God's word of hope and resurrection preached slowly, passionately and from the heart.
You can find our liturgy here. You'll see that we sang Shine Jesus Shine - this was Suzanne's last joke against me - I always stopped her from putting it onto the service sheets, it is one of my least favourite hymns. This morning as we began our serivce with it I really enjoyed it. Hope can tranform us.
We ended by saying "live love laugh" together before receiving the blessing. These were the words on a necklace that Suzanne had given to her sister a few years ago.
So we try to carry hope forwards.