lurchersontheedge

Keeping Holy Week is not the easiest when you suddenly find yourself surrounded by funerals.

Maundy Thursday, however, forces some reflection on Jesus the Servant. The story of Jesus washing his disciples feet is central to the Last Supper in John’s Gospel

I have often wondered what the church – and consequently the world – would be like if the central symbol of Christianity was not a cross, but a bowl and a towel.

Jesus – the one who serves.

It is revolutionary

Jesus – the leader would be more apt at times

At least it would be more apt for those in power within the church.

service and servanthood are things that seem to have dissonance for our time.

They are though what we most

and in Jesus we might find an or the appropriate model

Something I have learnt during Lent

I am a Yorkshireman

I am male

I am married

I have a son

I am a priest

I preside at the Eucharist; and with some audacity stand in the place of Christ.

I preside with my arms in a cruciform position; yet am resentful when people take advantage of me

I open my home to people, and get fed up when they do not go away.

I am not an administrator, nor do I want to be

I am a scholar, who does not have enough time to read – and then can end up reading all the wrong stuff that turns out to be poetically right all along.

I spend lots of time with people, when I love to be alone.

I am never more content than when walking my hounds, and wonder how they can live such uncomplicated lives.

I like music, but do not understand it.

I am forever pacing the cage

I like art, but do not comprehend it.

I am on a journey, with many and with a few.

I am still discovering what it is like to live with image that stares back at me from the mirror.

I am learning to like living

to enjoy chasing the wind and smelling the rain.

the touch of the sun and caress of the grass

I am learning to be me in this place

I am a priest. It is sometimes like being a shaman

communicating the divine through the fractured prism of the world

I am a new thinker

I keep to traditions

I cannot make a decision alone

for a priest does not exist in isolation

I am an introvert

I am learning to be me once again

I did not enjoy being young

I did not enjoy being a child

constrained and hemmed in

frustrated by a poverty of the imagination

living without the kaleidoscope of expectation

change came with movement

change came with an opening

I am learning to be me once again

I am priest

I chase rainbows in the rain for people

I laugh at their stories

and help make holy their narratives

I cry and I rage

I stamp and I shout

I lose temper when I should not

I am discovering who I am once again

I can skim a pebble in the stream

I can spend hours waiting for the kingfisher

I can listen to TMS for hours

I can lose myself in the poetry of the word

I can be silent and still embrace the sound

For all that I am is precious

Untarnished

Gem-like

and wonderful

Fearful

carefully crafter

I am learning to be me once again.

Holy Wednesday. Our title series continues with ‘Son of Man’. One of the intriguing things is that this phrase is at one and the same time the description most commonly used by Jesus to describe himself and one that disappears quite quickly from usage within the early church. Luke places it on the lips on Stephen as he is martyred and John uses it in The Revelation. There is also the slight conundrum as to what this title or phrase actually means. A variety of solutions have been offered. It is used as the personal pronoun ‘I’. It means a ‘human being’. Or perhaps an identification with the first human ‘Adam’. I am more persuaded by the possibility that Jesus was alluding to the divine figure found in Daniel and Enoch. Thus, when Jesus refers to himself as ‘the one like a son of man’; he is placing himself truly on the side of God.

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.

Holy Tuesday sees us exploring the title ‘Son of God’.

In many ways I want to begin with a further reflection on the term ‘Messiah’ or ‘Anointed’ from Holy Monday. The term ‘Anointed’ is fairly meaningless, without some idea of what a person is anointed for. In a similar way, the term ‘son of God’ may be a little bit vacuous without some thought as to who God is. Let me explain, when I return home to my childhood church, I am always regarded as the ‘son of George’. That makes no sense to those who of you who have no idea who ‘George’ is or was; but means a lot to those in that congregation who view my late father with something close to hagiography.

Jesus being the son of God obviously means something in terms of the relationship between Father and Son. Theologians can talk at length with about that.

However, the most important thing might be to reflect on what Jesus being God’s son says about God.

I hope people will say of me. Kevin is a chip off the old block. That would be a hugely satisfying thing for me. It would also say something about my Dad.

To say Jesus is God’s son, means that God is a little bit like Jesus. Sadly, I am not sure the church is yet ready for that sort of revelation.

Holy Monday – so we continue with the titles of Jesus. Today we have been exploring Jesus the Messiah. Messiah is translated into Greek as  Christos (Christ) and into English, Anointed.

The Jewish background to the term ‘Messiah’ is interesting. Many of us might think that Jews at the time of Jesus had a highly developed understanding of what Messiah was meant to be. Of course, some undoubtedly did. Others did not. The term ‘Messiah’ or ‘Anointed’ occurs 38 times in the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament. One of these times is interestingly enough applied to the pagan king, Cyrus. Undoubtedly around the time of Jesus, there were those who wanted some sort of davidic leader to come and rid Palestine from the Roman oppressors. Some of those who wanted the Romans out thought of a Messiah figure. Certainly this is true of the writers (and uses) of the Psalms of Solomon, particular Ps 17. There are some connections between that text and the title found for Jesus at the beginning of Luke’s Gospel. Other Jews and Jewish groups wanted Rome gone, and themselves in charge.

The writers of some of the scrolls found near the Dead Sea seemed to think of the Messiah as a priestly figure, sometimes with a royal messiah at the priest’s side. That is not surprising really given that those writers wanted a Messiah to come and renew the the worship of God.

There then is perhaps the rub. To say Jesus is the Messiah is in many ways something quite safe; it can mean not a lot. However, if we say Jesus is the Anointed one, then another question is automatically begged. Anointed for what?

That perhaps is the deepest theological question there is.

We are exploring the titles of Jesus of Nazareth during Holy Week this week. The theme for Palm Sunday is Son of David. This is the term that the crowd of northerners around Jesus cried out as he approached the capital city on Palm Sunday. One might have a sneaky sympathy with the Perushim (the Pharisees), the teacher from Galilee looked nothing like David’s Son. There is little wonder therefore that Matthew in particular needed to stress that Jesus did look like a royal. I recall though from a long time ago that Jewish tradition contemporaneous to Jesus did hold that the Son of David was not a royal warrior, but one who healed and touched people. This would make sense of Lucan tradition of Bartimaeus crying out, ‘Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me’. In those same midsts of time, there are fragments or scraps from the Dead Sea that appear to point to a suffering messiah.

To those watching the claims of the crowd, Jesus may have looked foolish. There is then a delight that Palm Sunday fell on April Fool’s Day. Fools speak truth to power. Jesus did that, but something more dynamic and confusing. He spoke grace to power. Grace, generosity and vulnerability: all things that we at times struggle to understand.

It is far easier to think of Jesus as the warrior king still who will smite our enemies or as a failure than as someone who played with grace, and through that changed people’s lives; in ones and twos rather than of nations. Ones or twos are best. They are the size of a mustard seed to quote the poet-prophet king who became the fool on the hill.

I approach holy week with excitement, a sigh and no little trepidation. Most things are prepared, not all things, but most. I will work through the holy week booklet with my smallish Anglican congregation. On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, we will meet in the church at 12 Noon followed by lunch in The Vicarage. We will say Mass each evening. On Maundy Thursday, in the morning, I will be with the Bishop in his Cathedral renewing my ordination vows. In the evening, we will again celebrate the Mass, and I will wash feet of those who wish. Then the church building will be stripped, and we will abandon Christ leaving the sacrament in the sanctuary. On Good Friday, we will hold a Three Hour Devotion from 12 Noon until 3:00pm. This, for me, will be a wonderful experience. That evening, we will join our RC friends on an ecumenical walk of witness. On Holy Saturday, we will have a service of light followed by the first Mass of Easter. Easter Day will be a glorious celebration.

For many of my congregation this will seem a little too much. For me it will be glorious. Standing in the place of Christ for a week will be exhausting, exhilarating, draining, restoring, harrowing and exciting.

It will go some way to compensate for the times when ministry appears shallow, and I am frustrated. Then I remember, Christ did the shallow things too… and I wonder whether I will ever fully be read for Holy Week.

On Facebook, I have recently found myself defending the Anglican Covenant, which has will not return to the General Synod given that it has not carried the support of the majority of Diocesan Synods. Those who are into statistics will assert that more people actually voted for the Covenant than against it.  For many of my friends, supporting the Covenant would seem to be an odd thing to do. The reason for my defence is that I am passionately keen about supporting Christians, who live in difficult circumstances, in the Global South. I do not necessarily mean their bishops and archbishops, but the ordinary person.

I love belonging to the bigger picture. This stems, I think, from my earliest introduction to the Christian faith in the Methodist Chapel on Parkwood Springs and then at St James and St Christopher’s Church in Shiregreen. Both were situated on outer council estates. At the latter, I remember how supported we felt when we were visited by those from overseas. I do not know where they came from. The then bishop of Sheffield sent a number of black priests to be with us from other parts of the Anglican Communion. They came for 2 or 3 weeks at a time. These visitors nourished my young faith, if faith indeed it was, with their enthusiasm, compassion and smiles. Both estates would now be considered ‘white highlands’, where to be from an ethnic grouping other than White British would have been difficult. It was these visitors who gave me the courage to be friends with ‘Roy’ the only Black British boy in my school. I remember asking my parents whether I could bring Roy home to play. The reply was of course. Then I added, ‘we don’t mind that he is Black do we?’. It was over 30 years ago, so I imagine I did not use the word ‘black’. The visits from these Black priests enabled me to do this. The Anglican Communion, even though I did not know that was why they were with us, gave me this courage and I am indebted to it.

When I was just 18, I left the metropolitan city of Sheffield to seek my fortune in London. I actually spent two years working for £6 a week, plus bed, food et al on the London City Mission’s Voluntary Evangelism Scheme. It was there I discovered Evangelicals. I also again met Anglican Christians from other parts of the world. I was enriched by what they offered.

I was finally persuaded to go to University. Boys from my estate, or girls for that matter, did not go into HE. Newcastle-upon-Tyne beckoned. It was there I was introduced to a variety of Anglicanism. I am sure all Anglicans are guilty of thinking their own parish church is the epitome of what the Church of England is like. There I have done it used Anglicans and the Church of England in the same sentence. One of the problems is that most members of the Church of England do not see themselves as Anglicans; or Anglican can simply mean a member of the Church of England. The world may or may not have become smaller, but it certainly seems to be more insular.

After Newcastle, came London and doctoral research, spending time whenever I could at Tyndale House, Cambridge (www.tyndale.cam.ac.uk) which is the largest biblical studies library in the UK. It has an evangelical foundation. Even then, I suppose I just thought of evangelicals as what my local church had always done; rather than a particular tribe.

Teaching came, and then ordination training at Queen’s Birmingham (www.queens.ac.uk). I must admit that was quite a challenge. But a challenge because of an eclectic group of Anglicans, not to mention Methodists and the odd URC, were training together: Evangelicals, liberals, Anglo-Catholics. I could speak at length about what I thought about some of the training, but it is clear that one of the good things about the place was, and continues to be, that I was taught to rub along with others, regardless of theological backgrounds and/or personal conviction. During my time at Queen’s, I spent the summer in Volos, Greece at an Orthodox Theological Academy. I wrote an icon, after much dispute with the two monks who were leading the session about whether they could teach a heretic, who had let the sacking of Constantinople happen. I am responsible for a lot, but you know I did not realise my powers extended that far. Gradually over 6 weeks, Fr Antonios and I became great friends. Personal relationships break down many barriers.

It would be tremendously sad if Christians and other people of goodwill could not find it possible to be friends with those who differ from them.

This booklet will be handed out in the hallowed space of St Michael and All Angels, Bartley Green on Palm Sunday during Parish Mass.

Booklet – Titles- bookfold

Hope all is well

I thought this review the Parish undertook of our relationship with Bartley Green School might be worth a wider audience.

This assumes that the blog does get a wider audience of course.

affiliation review