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Chocolate Teapots (6th March 2011)

Matthew 17:1-9

Here is a story of the Transfiguration. It is crammed full of symbols, more than any other story of Jesus. The symbols point backwards to the Old Testament and who Jesus represents in law and prophecy in Moses and Elijah and the glowing like Moses and the glory and cloud of God on Sinai, and also points forwards to the future glory and the resurrection. In fact there are too many symbols crammed into this on story for me to believe it is anything more than an early church parable about Jesus that has been read back into the story of Jesus.

Having said that, I'm happy to live with it as a great faith story that sets Jesus in the past and in the future but my faith doesn't depend on it in any way. It feeds it, encourages it, nurtures it, but not grounds it. Indeed the grounding has already taken place in these last long weeks of the sermon on the mount. This transfiguration thing is a bit of a peculiarity given the daily moral relationship code he's been laying out for us over the last few weeks. Come to think on it, if it is about the future resurrection glory, then it just doesn't do it for me either because resurrection is about a new relationship with life, and not a place in heaven. We're in this faith thing because of the stuff the sermon on the mount speaks of hopefully and not for a pair of sunglasses to dim the glory of some future event.

Sanctuary

A wee meditative action for Sunday. This takes place after the sermon and reflects being a place of sanctuary quite different from the pressures and worries of the world where worry can be 'healed' through being a place of compassion. Perhaps this is the church. As each line is spoken, a lily is brought forward.


Sanctuary:
a place where the dust of the world can be removed and feet are washed in fresh water that makes the journey possible again

Sanctuary:
a place where worry meets compassion and compassion loves worry enough to carry it a while

Sanctuary:
a place where the weight of darkness is lifted a little and does not bear so heavily on your shoulders

Sanctuary:
a place where real laughter cracks the silence sufficiently to let through the light, enough that it cannot be put back

Sanctuary:
a place where that which is outside cannot harm that which is inside, and let’s what is inside take deep breathes of fresh, clean life once more

Sanctuary:
a place where time stands still so there is always enough to listen and hold and restore what worry has broken

Sanctuary:
a place where the gift of encouragement is generous and unconditional

Sanctuary:
the place where God holds the hand of those the world has hurt, and with a knowing squeeze leads them back into the world, together.

Sanctuary:
the trysting place, the safe place, the bread and wine place, the Jesus place, the life-giving place, where lilies grow and where the sparrow find a nest.

Is this what you believe

We believe The Word is not bound by ink and paper but is set free in us to dream new dreams and unfold new adventures.
Is this what you believe?
Yes this is what we believe

We believe the life God gives is not celebrated in rules but is celebrated in our diversity.
Is this what you believe?
Yes this is what we believe

We believe that as the sun sets in one land it rises in another handing over the prayers of the world from one to another.
Is this what you believe?
Yes this is what we believe

We believe the story of faith comes alive in the communities we grow but is hurt by the barriers we build.
Is this what you believe?
Yes this is what we believe

We believe transformation is a gift from God which is never complete and longs to be set free in us.
Is this what you believe?
Yes this is what we believe

We believe resurrection is heaven’s conspiracy to redeem all that is evil and bring to life all that is good.
Is this what you believe?
Yes this is what we believe

We believe justice is God’s unravelling of all that hurts, oppresses and dulls life in each other.
Is this what you believe?
Yes this is what we believe

We believe that a spark lights a flame which kindles an idea that ignites a moment. We all have a spark within us.
Is this what you believe?
Yes this is what we believe

 

A wee blessing

Sometimes you get times where there is a disproportionate number of moans in a community. Is it something to do with the water or is there something in the air that casues it? It can really sap the energy of the whole community. Anyway here's a wee blessing written tonight to see you through.

 

When the day draws to a close
may you find God thanking your soul for this day
And when the dusk settles over you
may the word call your name as it did at the beginning of time
And when the sun sets as it slips over the horizon
may the spirit of tomorrow tempt you with the promise of a new dawn

Chocolate Teapots (27th February 2011)

Matthew 6:24-34

Jesus isn't exactly helpful here for our angst ridden society. 'Don't worry'?... get real! We're born to worry. I'm genetically designed to seek out everything that will cause me to worry and instead of choosing one, I go for the whole lot.

It would be great not to worry about where my food will come from and what will happen to my pension and my family and mortgage (the list is pretty long) and just live the sheer poetry of the lilies of the field and birds of the air who seem to have enough to eat supplied by God (not sure that's exactly accurate either).

If we believe in a God who in interventionist, who moves into the world to set it right every so often, then perhaps we can give up worrying because God will sort if all out. (Major problems with that concept of God because I see precious little evidence of it ever happenng). On the other and if we have a more progressive model where we don't hold to 'God' being some divine monarch who intervenes and feeds us when we are hungry or supply a home for us when we are homeless then these words seem to have very little to offer us. It's as if Jesus is saying 'cheer up, it will be alright in the end.' And when you are down and worried, you just want to throw words like that back in the face of the one who uttered them.

Are these words redeemable? I don't know. I really don't. Except to say that Jesus goes on to say: seek first the reign of God, then all these things will be added unto you. Choose what you worry about, perhaps? Or stop spending time worrying about those things you can do nothing about and act for those things you can do something about? But even then... And the bit that says 'all these things added unto us', I've still to see the evidence of that too, where are the rich Ghandi's and the wealth Mother Theressa's?

I don't know how to handle this text. Did Jesus hear himself speaking these words in the garden of Gethsemene? I'm away to ponder and if anyone can help, please chip in.

Eye for an eye

You can't really let this Sunday go past when people all round the world who use the common lectionary have been thinking about an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth without making space for Lybia tonight.

We thought about the whole middle east today in dispatches where people have shows the injusyice of a system and shamed it into the first steps towatds change (hopefully one that is peaceful and life-giving rather than military rule). However Lybia seems to have gone for the disporportionate clamp down where human life seems cheap. And eye for and eye is a moral code that at least limits retaliation. Turn the other cheek shames the rules that oppress. 

Butm what do you do when the oppressor shows themselves once more to be without morality? I don't know any other way that to hold space, a vigil of sorts, that makes us make space and makes us think of those who stand up to oppression and forces us to change our routine because turning the other cheek, protesting against unjust systems is an expensive revolution and you can't do it on your own.

 

Revolution

The enemy:
            love them
The oppressor:
            walk the mile with them
The Master:
            turn the other cheek to them

This doormat faith
seems too much to bear
in a world where those who bully
always seem to win

The enemy:
            imbalance them with love
The oppressor:
            shame the law that oppresses
The Master:
           turn the cheek as an equal

This rebellious faith
seems too much to bear
in a world where those who bully
are loved back to justice by the bullied

But this is heaven’s revolution
and we are called into it
come let us worship
love’s rebel, Jesus

 

You can receive the previous months supply of these bits and bob for worship all at one go each month by subscribing to Mucky Paws by emailing here and asking to subscribe. It doesn't cost a thing, because the stuff is made up on the hoof and at the last monite often but it may help your imagination design something more suitable for your own place and community.

Trust us. You can.

David Cameron seems to be right into The Big Society dream which isn't a very original idea. The Church and a million other generous voluntary organisations have been doing it for ever.

But those of us who have been doing the Big Society all the way through Thatcherism who made it a policy of doing away with society and steering everyone towards aggressive individualism are really getting a bit scunnered when everything we do that is defined as 'Big Society' is made harder and harder because of government policy and austerity. Does David Cameron really know what it is like to do Big Society stuff?

Please, sir, help us do what you want us to do. We're good at it but everything from VAT to OSCAR from PAT testing to a whole host of other regulations are not just eating away at our income that allows us to do Big Society ideas, but is wolfing its way through an ever reducing budget. Even our Gift Aid is being slashed further because the transition period is over and our potential to benefit from Gift Aid will drop much further come April.

I'm not asking for the church and other voluntary organisations to be excluded from health and safety regulations and all the measures that keep people secure and safe but to free up some money that could help us out in doing the admin and regulatory stuff we need to do that milks us. For example finance the local authority to employ someone who can do everyone's PAT tests for free; restore a higher rate of Gift Aid so we don't lose a whack of income in April, free us up from the VAT rise that has been in place since January on the services we pay for and equipment we need or we will be out of business before you're in opposition again.

We live to do Big Society. Indeed, you, the government,  pay us to do it becasue we do it better than you, but every good we do seems to be taxed, cut, or expected to be done on less and less where we have to carry a greater and great burden of regulations. An austerity budget surely isn't meant to make us more austere with our care and support and big-society-building but that is exactly what is happening.

It is very expensive being a member of a church or voluntary organisation. Very expensive indeed. But I think we too are too big to fail. If you gave us even 1% of what the banks have been given, we'd give you 101% in return and the whole of society would benefit. Let us prove it to you. Trust us. You can. And that's not just a strap line. That's a fact.

Chocolate teapots (February 20th 2011)

Matthew 5:38-48

'If anyone...' It's the sort of thing your teachers says to you before they leave the room on some errand threatening the general populas that if they step out of line before teacher returns there will be punuishment exercises all round. If Jesus was speaking like this as he preached the sermon on the mount all he would be doing would be offering some playground rules and  general wisdom for good Christian behaviour. But Jesus was doing anything but.

Okay, let's not seem to be quite so certain because I don't suppose we can be. But there is a very diferent way of approaching what Jesus said here. Whenever Jesus said, 'If anyone...' his listeners knew exactly who he was talking about. These weren't general rules for good behaviour but a comment towards those who lauded power over the poor.

'If anyone slaps you on the right cheek...' is not something that best friends did each day as way of saying 'Good Morning' but the way a slave owner treated a slave. And if you turned the other cheek then you humiliated him. You had to hit someone in the right way. Turning the other cheek meant the owner had to hit you on the wrong cheek and illustrate that he was not in control. Read more about that here.

And so on with the list of 'If anyone's' Jesus offers. He's rebalancing the order between the poor and the powerful without a sword being lifted or even a word being spoken. This is Jesus at his coolest, clearest and most radical.

It is a bit of a different world now however and the bigger question for us is how we respond to injustice that rebalances a world tipped towards those with power: as a church how do we illustrate injustice and that we will no longer accept? How do you turn the other cheek?

Suggestions?

 

Eternal now

atlantic waves still run
beyond the days of the world
something eternal
continues to chant a rhythm
that swallows up the minutes of life
and they will see all things
come and go,come and go
and with grace each minute
becomes an eternity of its own