lurchersontheedge

Everyone with an ounce of human decency will recoil at the images that invade our television screens, laptops, notebooks, tablets etc chronicling the atrocities committed by the self-proclaimed Islamic State against religious minorities, including Christians.

I write as a Christian, but I acknowledge that it is not only my own brothers and sisters in Christ who are suffering at the hands of this fundamentalist movement. Indeed anyone who is other is seemingly to be obliterated. Christians are other to the Islamic State by virtue of their baptism, which should give Christians in the west preparing to baptise children of parents with no recognisable faith food for thought. I also acknowledge that the so-called Islamic State will to many Muslims be a perversion of their faith.

I also lament the fact that my own government, with others, helped create a situation where this fundamentalist group could flourish. The UK government is not responsible of course for the choices each individual has made, but our sometimes headlong rush into military intervention has looked to like a crusade. Indeed the then British Prime Minister and president of the United States seemed to talk like people on a mission, at times like fundamentalists of a different kind.

I am saddened by our Western Christian inability to understand the history of the Christian faith, and to seemingly know nothing of the historic centres of Christianity in the Middle Eastern region. Christians, Muslims, Jews have co-existed peacefully in many countries; always sustained just by the delicate environment created by successive governments. How many of us would have heard of Mosul before the turn of this year? How many of us would have sought to understand that when our governments ensured the end of their governments, the religious bio-structure would be profoundly shaken, leading to destruction of centuries of lived out faith. There were Christians in Iraq long before Augustine came to Canterbury.

All this can should shake us and descend into a lament. That would be good, if western Christians learned afresh from others.

Practically, you can pray – but pray in an informed way: use resources offered by Christian Aid and by organisations working alongside the suffering Church. Remember to pray for those who are not Christians too. No one should be hounded because they are other.

You can make sure others are informed.

You can protest: why not write to your MP. I have written to mine, see below. Make sure you adjust it. An individual letter can have more effect than a petition.

You can challenge: why cannot the UK offer asylum to anyone fleeing from this mess? We have after all helped create it.

We cannot simply walk by on the other side. It is time that praying hands also got a little dirty

Albert Owen
House of Commons
Westminster
London SW1A 0AA

Dear Albert

It was good to meet you at St Cybi’s, Holyhead on 2 August for the First World War commemoration service. I am, I suspect like you, desperately moved by the reports coming out of Iraq, particularly concerning the alleged atrocities towards Christians and other religious minorities by the self-proclaimed Islamic State.

I am delighted that Her Majesty’s Government has sought to provide humanitarian relief to those who have fled in fear of their lives, and would ask you to convey my thanks for this to the FCO, but urge them to increase such action alongside our international partners.

I am though very saddened by reports that the government is not prepared to offer asylum to those who lives are at risk. As you are aware, the United Nations defines a refugee as someone who lives with a “well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion”. Those fleeing for their lives or in hiding clearly come into this category.

Whilst I am willing to be corrected, there seems to have been an articulate silence from the Leader of the Opposition on the matter of the persecution of minorities in Iraq. The nations of the United Kingdom have a long tradition of generosity to those who are fleeing violence. This stems from the inherited Judaeo-Christian tradition that has shaped some of our values, but is found in the social justice of the Labour movement and shared by many people of goodwill regardless of their religious beliefs.

I would be grateful if you could press the government to do more to help and embrace those who are being forced to flee, and also encourage your own front bench team to become more vocally articulate in supporting and challenging the actions taken by the government. I look forward to hearing from you

I spent the week of remembering the First World War in Eastriggs, which is a village of 3000 near Annan. It was interesting to be in Scotland during the week of the first debate between Salmond and Darling. Actually, I do have a vote in the forthcoming ballot and will be using it.

It was more significant to be in the place that styles itself the Commonwealth Village. It was during the First World War, that people from all over the British Isles and the Commonwealth came to this quiet unassuming village to make what Conan Doyle described as the ‘devil’s porridge’: munitions.

You can find out more about this at: http://www.visitscotland.com/info/see-do/the-devils-porridge-museum-p253371

Friendships were forged during this time of war

Eastriggs is proud of its hospitality, and from the visitor’s books, people from the Commonwealth are proud of Eastriggs.

The flags of the Saltire, Commonwealth and EU fly together.

I am reading Rowan Williams book entitled Being Christian. It is published by SPCK. Archbishop Rowan explores Baptism, Bible, Eucharist and Prayer.

I am only 6 pages into the section on baptism. However, these words strike me as deeply significant for my pastoral dilemma of keeping a consistently open policy

So it seems that, from the very beginning, baptism as a ritual for joining the Christian community was associated with the idea of going down into the darkness of Jesus’ suffering and death, being ‘swamped’ by the reality of what Jesus endured. St Paul speaks of being baptized ‘into’ the death of Christ (Romans 6:3). We are, so to speak, ‘dropped’ into that mysterious event which Christians commemorate on Good Friday, and, more regularly, in the break of bread at Holy Communion (1-2).

It is clear to me that this is probably not what the average parent who comes to my surgery to make a booking thinks they are doing. Nor, am I persuaded, that they believe it to be the case following my sometimes erudite baptismal preparation 🙂

The question then is: where does that leave us? If baptism means one thing and people something different: should we not sometimes have the courage to offer that which is different, rather than perhaps emptying baptism of what the church universal has mostly considered it to mean?

A Sermon given at St Cybi’s Holyhead on 2 August 2014

Dan ni yma heddiw i cofio:

I confess until this year to knowing very little about the First World War, the Great War, the War to end all wars. At school, we looked in detail at the Second World War and its aftermath. At University too, I grappled with theologians and thinkers who were responding to later conflicts.

My knowledge of the First World War was scanty based on a BBC TV comedy Blackadder, which in the midst of the laughter pointed to the courage, bravery and futility of some of what went on and upon the story of the Christmas Truce when British and German soldiers ventured into no man’s land together, pointing to us that within heat of battle, common and shared humanity was there.

I am part of a generation whose parents were too young – just – to serve in the Second World War. As son of the steel city, I do remember the sinking of our ship in the South Atlantic in 1982, and war for me for the first time entered into real life.
As I have discovered more about the Great War. I find myself being stilled. The stories of the Somme, the trenches, stench and mud have caused my imagination to be stirred and questions to be the created. Bill Mitton, the soldier-poet encapsulates this well.

I stood there before the crosses
glowing white in row on row
Everyone a young life cut short
as the names upon them show.

The dates they died below the names
tell of wars now passed and gone
Passchendaele, the Somme, and Mons
of battles fought, and lost or won.

History remembers, as it should
these men who fought and died
Whilst for their families left behind
a dull sorrow tinged with pride.

The faces of boys held now in Sepia
who died in days long gone
yet living on in memories
and hearts, still holding on.

Yet despite the hurt and grief here
what with horror makes me fill
Is that when I look behind me
there are more new crosses growing still.

For as we remember the First World War, we cannot but have the brutality of ancient and current conflicts at the forefront of our minds.

In the midst of conflicts, there has always been the God-person, the Padre. One writing home in 1914 penned these words:

I can go where I like; I go to see the wounded when being brought back from the front, and to see if I am needed when gunners have been shelled. If necessary, I am ready to go to the firing line, but I should only be in the way in the daytime. I see the sick who come in daily and are sent off by the ambulances to a hospital down country.

My first two Sundays I had no services. My third Sunday I had one in a farmyard lasting 20 minutes; and we had to march almost directly after. My fourth Sunday I crossed a river into the danger zone and held a service (without a surplice) for two companies, who were sleeping in bivouacs of straw in a wood in inches of water, surrounded by pools of mud up to 1ft. deep! I then went on to another wood to some more troops, and began a service, but a deluge stopped it, and I had to cancel a third owing to rain. We generally fight or march on Sundays!

War through all things up into the air: all were touched by its tentacles.

Those who served
– as soldiers, sailors and airmen
– as medics, nurses, padres, ambulance drivers
– in munitions factories
– on the farm

Those left behind
– wives, parents, friends, the aged, infirm

And, as importantly, those who objected, yet served.

Holyhead itself was decimated by the conflict and cared for many of those who were injured including at Stanley Sailor’s Hospital
We are here to remember.

We are here to commit ourselves to change

In this ancient holy place whose walls have seen more than enough bloodshed; we are here to offer to God our hopes and desires for a better world.

A Poet once said: History repeats itself. It has to. No one listens.

In this holy place whose walls have heard more than enough sermons urging a commitment to peace, we remember that the God who calls us to follow comforted the broken hearted, challenged the powerful and offered blessing to any who would work for peace.

I love Easter! I do! I love the fact that I believe with every fibre of my being that Jesus Christ smashed the powers of death and hell. I love the great resurrection shout, ‘Alleluia! Christ is risen!’ which can be met with the response, ‘He is risen indeed. Alleluia’ in lots of corners of our globe.

Easter gives a reason for living and is a motivating factor for much of Christian engagement in the world.

I do though want to hang on to the Friday. I hope it is not in a macabre way. It is not even because of the intense suffering that Jesus endured, which has been replicated in many and various ways by countless others down the centuries, save in one respect.

It is because whilst the Friday is usually seen through the lens of the Sunday, Sunday needs to be controlled by the Friday at times. I simply mean that the events of the Friday make the Sunday more palatable and real.

Pob bendith

Vestry agendaThe Easter Vestry takes place soon:

The Report

The papers and agenda can be found by clicking the above links

It is far too early in the morning for theological reflection. However, just a thought. Why is it that Jesus cannot be dead today? Why do we need to think necessarily of this as a time of smashing the gates of hell and engaging in a rescue mission to those who had died before the incarnation? Good Friday is different. We can rage against injustice. We can admire the heroism of someone bearing unspeakable pain. Saturday is about stillness, brokenness and impotence. Nothingness. A reminder that death is never nothing at all.

Let God, in Jesus, be dead. After all that being dead is the supreme embrace of our fragile mortality, which reminds us that the incarnation allows humanity and divinity to intermingle again. In between the hammer of the nails of the Friday and the shrieks of the Sunday, listen to the silence and remember that we too are impotent and have no need to pretend anymore.

Pob bendith

Holy Saturday should not become Easter Sunday. The first Holy Saturday would have been an entirely numbingly bleak affair. The one on whom Jesus’ followers had begun tentatively to pin their hopes had gone. He was not in the next room; he had been humiliated and executed. Strands of scripture that may have pointed to Jesus being the holy one of Israel would have sounded like a clanging gong. Silence for this painful Saturday is an appropriate and utterly human response.

Biblical Text – Luke 24: 13-27
13 That very day two of them were going to a village named Emmaus, about seven miles[a] from Jerusalem, 14 and they were talking with each other about all these things that had happened. 15 While they were talking and discussing together, Jesus himself drew near and went with them. 16 But their eyes were kept from recognizing him. 17 And he said to them, “What is this conversation that you are holding with each other as you walk?” And they stood still, looking sad. 18 Then one of them, named Cleopas, answered him, “Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?” 19 And he said to them, “What things?” And they said to him, “Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, a man who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, 20 and how our chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death, and crucified him. 21 But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things happened. 22 Moreover, some women of our company amazed us. They were at the tomb early in the morning, 23 and when they did not find his body, they came back saying that they had even seen a vision of angels, who said that he was alive. 24 Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but him they did not see.” 25 And he said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! 26 Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” 27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.

Questions

1. What do you think the words ‘we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel’ meant?

2. The words ‘we had hoped’ are sometimes very sad; how do we move beyond hopelessness?

3. The early Church set great store by the fact that the pattern of Jesus’ life followed some of the contours found in the Old Testament. Is this important you? How important is the Old Testament for our faith?

Reflection for Holy Saturday

Bitter pain, searing loss
divine abandonment, mother’s tears
mocking soldiers, cruel crown
battered body, beyond the lament
gathered together; in one place
together in silent defiant space
silence demands its sacred pause
the stillness does not wait
we need not pretend does
lest all is forgotten as the breath comes again

Mark 10:45 with the following words placed on the lips of Jesus For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” sets the scene for us as begin thinking about Maundy Thursday. In context, Jesus is talking about how to exercise power, after James and John had come to him asking to have thrones next to him.

Instead of claiming the right to rule, Jesus claimed the right to serve. One of the earliest Christian poems preserved by Saint Paul picks up on this.

Christ Jesus,6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of human beings. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross (Philippians 2: 6-8).

Biblical Text – John 13: 1-5

1It was before Passover, and Jesus knew that the time had come for him to leave this world and to return to the Father. He had always loved his followers in this world, and he loved them to the very end. 2Even before the evening meal started, the devil had made Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, decide to betray Jesus. 3Jesus knew that he had come from God and would go back to God. He also knew that the Father had given him complete power. 4So during the meal Jesus got up, removed his outer garment, and wrapped a towel around his waist. 5He put some water into a large bowl. Then he began washing his disciples’ feet and drying them with the towel he was wearing.

Questions

1. This passage is unique to John. How different would our faith be if the major symbol was not a Cross but a bowl and a towel?
2. What would it feel like if Jesus came to you and offered to wash your feet? Why would you think he was washing your feet?
3. John writes that Jesus knew had ‘complete power’. Is washing feet an example of how power should be exercised in the Church and world?

Reflection for Maundy Thursday

This is our God, the Servant King
he calls us now to follow him
to bring our lives as a daily offering
of worship to the Servant King
(c) Graham Kendrick

Washing feet

Washing feet, touching the divine
Touching the divine, healing wounds
Healing wounds, with self-emptying love
Self-emptying love, a pattern both human and divine
Human and divine patterns offering a shape
A shape for us to love and grow
To love and grow as we wash feet
To see in each the presence of the divine

Of all the phrases used by Jesus to describe himself; the term ‘one like a son of man’ is used most often. There has been some suggestion that perhaps it was not a title after all, but means something like ‘a human being’ or is the equivalent of using the word ‘I’. However, this seems unlikely given the evidence of both Old Testament texts like Daniel and Ezekiel and Jewish texts that were contemporaneous to the life of Jesus, like 1 (Ethiopic) Enoch.

In such texts, the Son of Man is a divine figure, who exercises judgement on the nations, acts on behalf of God and is offered worship (Daniel 7, Ezekiel 1 and 1 Enoch 46)

Biblical Text – Mark 8: 31-38
31 And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again. 32 And he said this plainly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. 33 But turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”
34 And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 35 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. 36 For what does it profit a human being to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? 37 For what can a human being give in return for his soul? 38 For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”
Questions

1. What would you not want to lose in order to follow Jesus?
2. How important do you think the title ‘Son of Man’ is?
3. Who do you think the Son of Man will be ashamed of?
4. What do think of the fact that it was necessary (part of the divine plan) for Jesus to suffer on our behalf?

Reflection for Holy Wednesday

Within the first decade of the life of the early Church, that is to say within a decade after the resurrection, Jews who followed Jesus as Messiah were worshipping him alongside God. We cannot overestimate the importance of the language and symbolism surrounding the figure of the ‘Son of Man’, in helping them to do this.

Word incarnate, truth revealing
Son of Man on earth!
Power and majesty concealing
By your humble birth

(c) Michael Saward