I believe in God

Every day at Evensong in the cathedral I utter the words 'I believe in God' and I don't have my fingers crossed behind my back.  There are all sorts of things that I might wobble over, but I just don't wobble over my belief in God.  I wonder at why things are as they are, especially when I have to face some of the darkest moments in human suffering.  I have my moments of profound faith in various tenets of the Christian faith and others when I find the metaphor expresses something imperceptible behind it.  But deep down I find it more incredible to believe that everything that exists is a mere accident than I do that it has a prime mover, source and ultimate destination.

That said when we start asking what that God, prime mover, is like then massive differences of opinion open up.  I don't for instance believe in an old man with a white beard sitting on a cloud.  I don't believe in a magician who gives me a parking space when I'm pressed for time and some how prioritises that over the child dying of Ebola.  Quite frankly I'd rather he concentrated on the child than my inconvenience, however important the engagement I'm late for.  I don't believe God is a puppeteer.

Do I believe this God is personal?  I believe there is a relationship that we have with the divine and that we see this uniquely revealed in Jesus Christ, a Jew who walked and taught in Palestine 2,000 years ago.  I believe that something profound happened for the disciples to talk of him having risen from the dead, what we call the Resurrection, and they were so profoundly affected by this that they would die for it.  I can't explain it and it isn't dependent on the tomb being empty, though without it the claim would have had a serious flaw on a superficial level.  David Jenkins, the radical and inspirational Bishop of Durham of the 1980s, described this as the resurrection being much more than a conjuring trick with bones.  Sadly the journalists at the time weren't listening and misunderstood him.  I believe this resurrection is a foretaste of what lies in store for us, that each of us is uniquely loved and treasured by the creator.  Salvation is the rescuing of us from the consequences of the world being temporal and transitory.  If I'm wrong I won't have eternity to worry about it!

I don't find my belief in God incompatible with Big Bang or any scientific theory and I haven't since I first started thinking about these things.  The Bible has to be understood in a much more subtle way than that.  It is metaphor, narrative and poetry.  It's truth is more profound than whether it happened as it says it did.  I certainly don't believe the world was made in 6 days and the earth isn't flat!  I don't believe in talking snakes.  I do find in these stories profound insight.

So when I hear that the Pope has declare that God is not a magician and he accepts Big Bang I don't know whether to say 'so what else did you expect' or be depressed that anyone thinks this is earth shattering news.  Also when I hear reports that 2% of Anglican Clergy don't believe in God, I ask myself, what kind of God don't they believe in?  The survey this statement is based on, in which I took part, always hinges on how people interpret the question or options offered as possible answers.  It then depends on what those writing up the story have in their minds or fantasy about what we believe when looking for a headline.

That said there are a lot of people spouting fundamentalist Christianity which would make this radical and so it is important to make it clear that they don't speak for us all, in fact they speak for very few.

If I didn't believe in God, a prime mover and goal, the one from whom we derive life and who cares for us even though at times that seems to be expressed in questionable ways, I could not do what I do.  But I do believe it and what is more I believe that in this belief lies the answer to the darkness and that darkness finds its meaning and explanation in God.

Jam and Jerusalem

Today I will welcome over 160 members of the Women's Institute to Peterborough Cathedral as part of a national baton 'relay' round the country.  This is part of their preparations for celebrating the 100th anniversary of the founding of the WI in 1915.  The WI is often associated with Jam and Jerusalem, but I have confess I hadn't realised what the connection was before I looked it up.

They were founded to promote women's education and wellbeing during the First World War.  They are connected with the suffragette movement and Jerusalem was a rally hymn for that cause.  It's adoption links votes with education and with promotion of women's wellbeing.  The Jam connection is their encouragement of home food preparation at a time of challenge, when making the most of the fruits of the earth particularly mattered.

In a year when the Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to two people for the promotion of children's education, not least for girls in countries where this is controversial and brings death threats, the work of the WI is worth celebrating and is a cause for reflection.

The WI also provides a vehicle for friendship and mutual care.  My mother-in-law was a member in Kent and I know that she derived great support and friendship through it.  Their strapline used to be 'for home and country'.

The prayer below was written for this visit today and is my attempt to bring these values and concerns together with some of the today's challenges.

God of justice, truth and peace
in your Son Jesus Christ,
you call men and women to follow you
and grow in faith, hope and love.
We give thanks for the Women's Institute
in promoting women's education and wellbeing,
bringing members together in friendship and mutual care.
Keep us ever mindful of the bonds that unite
strengthening cohesion in this land and throughout the world.
As we recall struggles for equality in the past,
we pray for all who strive for equality and education today,
remembering with thanksgiving the award of the Nobel Peace Price
for promoting these aims.
May the vision of the new Jerusalem become a reality
and all share in the rich bounty of the fruits of the earth:
through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

Future of the Parish

There is a series of debates taking place in Oxford on the future of the parish system in the Church of England, organised by the Westminster Faith Debates network.  The working thesis behind this seems to be that the Church of England is struggling to sustain the traditional ministry of being present in every community, for every community.  Some churches are just collapsing and with a demographic that indicates those under 50 years old are dramatically less likely to associate with the Church of England than those over, the prognosis is not good.

Focussing on the parish system is to look at effect rather than cause.  The parish system is a modus operandi, but behind it there has to be vibrant churches which are sustainable and engaging.  In short the challenge is the same that it has always been.  Unless we are missionary and draw people into the worshipping and faith life of the church there will be no church to engage in the myriad of activities that it has up to this point fulfilled.

After the Archbishop of Canterbury was quoted as saying good vicars grow churches, I wrote in December about some of the elements necessary for churches to grow.  Behind these there needs to be a congregation who will be the sales force for the gospel.  That may sound a glib way to put it, but without boots on the ground - to mix metaphors - there will be no growth.  The best draw for the church is those who try to live its message.  They are the ones who will show that the life and teaching of Jesus is relevant to today, that the faith inspires, and that worship enlivens with hope.

It is my fundamental belief that the survival of the church matters enormously because it carries a message that is life transforming, affirming and hope-filled.  If I didn't believe this I would give up - the struggle is so hard at times that it would just not be worth it.  But it is worth it.  It is also my belief that if the Church of England does collapse, and I hope it won't, we would need to reinvent it.  And the challenge for us is to reimagine what it would look like if we did reinvent it so that we can make that a reality.  Because that is what will ensure its survival.  Its survival is not the crucial issue though.  The crucial issue is what it serves and stands for, the difference it makes.

There are many people who have got fed up with what they see in churches, particularly when what they see doesn't live up to what they expect.  They are broken communities like everywhere else is.  But they should be a place where this brokenness is acknowledged, where healing and justice are affirmed and where that is all held so that it becomes a place of honesty.  When it becomes dysfunctional it all goes horribly wrong.

I stand by my points on what make a church grow.  Sometimes I am more hopeful than at other times with this agenda.

If the church was a business it would set its branches targets and if they didn't measure up they would be shut down or relocated.  We are not a business.  We are communities of real people, rooted in real places.  We don't just show up for an event and then go away again.  We are embedded in those communities - that is what the parish system means.  That means head office can't just shut down 'failing' places.  But if there isn't a turn around in growth, then some places will cease to be viable for the large resources required and they will be forced to reimagine and reinvent if they are to sustain a continued presence.

Behind and sustaining all of this must be a profound faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Without that the church has no point beyond whatever music or cultural associations it brings.  Those are replicable if wanted.  But without the faith, the church is not the church.  That spiritual vibrancy is its future, its life-blood and its only source of hope.  There is not other reason for it to exist.

Jesus and the fashion police

Royal weddings understandably attract a massive amount of attention.   The wedding of William and Kate in 2011 drew audiences from across the world and I suspect most people would have jumped at the chance had they been invited to the service and reception afterwards.  Even the most lukewarm of royal observers perks up at a good royal spectacular and they show just how far we are from republicanism.  These were the hottest tickets in town and I can’t imagine many people responding that they had business engagements to go to instead, let alone mistreating the postman delivering the message and certainly not killing any of them.  This makes the scenario in our gospel reading (Matthew 22:1-14) all the more bizarre.  Who in their right mind would turn down this invitation and with such bad grace and violence?

The clue to this strange parable comes at the end.  It is not that the fashion police single out the poor man who didn’t have the right clothes on.  It’s more remarkable that any of those last minute invitees were properly dressed at all.  No, this story is not really about a wedding and it’s certainly not about the dress code.  The way in to this story is to look at passages like the Epistle, which was so helpfully set alongside it by our lectionary.  This gave us a list of virtues: ‘whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things’ (Philippians 4:8).  These are the wedding clothes for the guests to the banquet.  These are attributes and qualities that we are to have with us all the time.  So if the invite comes we are ready because that is how we are living already.  We don’t need to go and get changed and won’t need excuses as to why we can’t come because we don’t want to be shown up, exposed for who we really are.  The grumpy guests revealed their hand by how they responded.

The Kingdom of God is like being ready when the moment of judgment comes.  And ‘judgment’ is one of those words we don’t like hearing or using.  Everyone is welcome and invited; we see that from how the invitations go out and broaden beyond those we’d expect to be invited.  Not just friends, not just those who we usually find attending great state occasions.  This is itself an interesting challenge to the usual assumptions about who is ‘good enough’ and ‘worthy’ and who is not.  That was an important message for when the gospel was written.  The gospel of Jesus Christ is not just for 1^st century Jews but for everyone and we find the first disciples having their horizons broadened as they journeyed with Jesus.  Tax Collectors become disciples alongside zealots and fishermen.  Roman officials have their request for healings granted.  Lepers are embraced and the blind and lame healed.  He feeds 5,000 by one seashore before crossing over to another community, of outsiders, and feeds 4,000 more.  But it is the leftovers that are telling – far more is provided for the outsiders than the insiders because the baskets used to collect the pieces are bigger.  Time and again the horizons are expanded.  Matthew begins his gospel with travelling foreigners worshipping and adoring as they left their strange gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.  The world comes to worship and Christ came for the world.

But this is only half the story.  The other half is that being invited calls us to account.  We have to make a decision and it challenges us with where we are when the invite comes.  No one knows when it will come.  It comes like a thief in the night, we are told, unexpected and without warning.  How it finds us is how we are.  There are consequences to what we do, the moral decisions we make and the character we develop.  The consequences reveal the clothes of our character that we carry with us all the time.  So when we enter the banquet we do so as we are and that is judgment day for all of us.

So the challenge of this seemingly strange story about a wedding and the fashion police is to take the call of God seriously; to shape our characters in light of that call: its justice, truth and all that is worthy of praise.  Do we measure up?  No of course we don’t.  Salvation always comes through God’s grace which completes what is lacking, but there are consequences.  If there weren’t what would be the point?  The call from this parable is to live as you would like to be found when someone demands that you give an account of how you are.

There are things we struggle with.  Some have been badly treated in the past and carry those scars.  They are part of the character.  Some are weighed down by what they see as unforgiveable guilt.  That is where the cross comes in.  It is the place we lay the things we can’t deal with but we do it with a deep desire that the taint will be taken away, and in that faith and approach it is.  We can face this judgment precisely when we realize that we have nothing in mitigation to say except I am trying.  It is when we use the words of the centurion that ‘I am not worthy to have you under my roof, but only say the word from a distance and all will be well’ (Matthew 8:8).  The centurion was near to the kingdom of God because he knew he needed God’s grace to heal and to redeem.  And strangely it is when we know our need that we find we have the right clothes to enter the banquet.  That is all God asks of us because in the words of the Psalmist, ‘a lowly and contrite heart he will not despise’ (Psalm 51:17).

We come before the throne of God’s grace and trust in his mercy.  The Kingdom of God is like those who were invited and while they may have been greatly surprised were ready to accept with honour, humility and great thanksgiving.

Sermon preached in Peterborough Parish Church, Sunday 12th October 2014

Staying at the Tax Booth: Robert Burns & Matthew

It’s not just because of recent events, a certain vote in Scotland, that I’ve been reading up on Robert Burns.  A couple of weeks ago we took our son Michael to Edinburgh to start at university there.  A number of people quipped about him going to a foreign land and his fellow servers at St John’s gave him a passport cover as a leaving gift.  I’m so glad that won’t now be needed!  We stopped off at Dumfries on our way back to break the journey.  Robert Burns is buried in St Michael’s churchyard there and there is a museum dedicated to him.  Fortunately I found a copy of his poems with an English translation so that I can make out his dialect.  It made me a pedant when watching ‘The Last Night of the Proms’ and the Promenaders committed the usual sin of singing ‘for the sake of auld lang syne’.  Which liberally means ‘for the sake of old time’s sake’ – too many ‘sakes’.  No wonder Scots get annoyed with us at times when we mangle their national poet!

Robert Burns grew up as a farmer.  But when he moved to live around Dumfries, to supplement his income, he became a taxman, working at the Dumfries excise office, and moving to the town.  So Scotland’s national poet was enforcing taxes for the fairly recently United Kingdom, just 50 years earlier.  He wrote his poetry, much of which I am new to, while continuing to work as a taxman.  Today we celebrate another taxman, Matthew, but he gave it up when he heard the call to follow Jesus.  Thinking of these two taxmen, Robert Burns and Matthew, has made me think about what it means to follow Jesus and not leave your former career.

The danger when we celebrate Matthew is that we set up a model of following Jesus which leaves no space for the day job.  Now on one level when we decide or become aware of the call to follow Jesus we come under new management.  To proclaim Jesus is Lord means that he is the boss and we will allow him and how we understand his gospel to set the road map.  I came into the cathedral the other day for Evensong and there was a couple sitting in the chairs by the choir with a massive sheet map opened out in front of them which they were studying intently.  It was a good image of what it means to come to the cathedral.  The spirituality of this place, the spirituality of Matthew and the other gospels lays out a road map for us that plots the route for our lives.  But it does this in the thick of daily living.  Most of us are not called to give us the day job.  Most Christians are called to stick in it; like Robert Burns to stay at the tax booth.

There are ways of earning a living and behaving which are incompatible with following Christ, being under his new management.  Extortion and corruption, which first century tax gathering often involved are such examples.  Modern tax gathering does not involve those.  It involves upholding justice and requiring us all to pay what is due, which is determined by a democratically elected government who are therefore answerable to us the people.  It’s not quite as simple as that and there are times when tax law works well and times when it doesn’t.  But we do have a process through which that can be called in and made accountable, even changed.  Tax is our common subscription as citizens of this nation and the United Kingdom.  We pay according to our ability and administering it is not only compatible with following Jesus, it is a noble act of public service.

A lot of thinking about work and faith, God on Monday projects and other Christians in business programmes, tend to focus on the higher level jobs, which asks ethical questions for senior managers.  These are important but we don’t hear much about what it means to be a follower of Jesus at the tills of Tesco (other supermarkets are available).  It amused me a few months ago when I went round to a shop nearby and as I passed my bread and wine through the checkout I saw that the man serving me was called Jesus.  You couldn’t make it up and the irony didn’t pass me by.  He did his name proud.  Checkout staff have a lot to put up with, not least rudeness and contemptuous behaviour from customers who have ceased to see a person of equal worth and see instead a slave who can be abused.  That takes a lot of grace to endure.  The values which make for good customer relations are actually ones we would recognize as being Christian and it is reassuring to note that putting faith into practice is actually good business practice too.  Exploiting customers and employees is short-term and does not build long-term loyalty or satisfaction and therefore repeat business and it leads to high staff turnover.  How we treat people makes a difference.

That word ‘slave’, particularly being a ‘slave’ for Jesus’ sake, was mentioned in our first reading (2 Corinthians 4:5).  It is not acceptable to treat anyone with contempt, whatever status we may see them as having.  But Paul in our first reading talks about himself being one without status, as one who subsumes himself to the Lordship of Christ; he is under the new management of God.  Whatever job we do, or however we fill our days, there are opportunities to put into practice our discipleship of Christ.  We are called to stay at the tax booth, not leave it.

Not everything in Robert Burns' life was exemplary.  He fathered children through several women; two daughters were born within a month of each other by different mothers.  He was though concerned for justice and fair treatment.  He knew that faith had moral implications, even if he didn’t always manage to keep to the road map and got a little lost.  Well who doesn’t?  In his ‘Epistle to a young friend’, which he wrote in 1786 he included these lines, which I give in their translated form and will make no attempt at a Scottish accent:

“When frolicking in Pleasure’s ring

Religion may be blinded

Or if she gives a random sting

It may be little minded

But when on Life we are tempest driven

A conscience but a canker

A correspondence fixed with Heaven

Is sure a noble anchor!” 1

A poster on the wayside pulpit at St Michael’s churchyard, his burial place, put it more succinctly:

“If your conscience has good brakes

your character won’t skid”.

Robert Burns' poetry has entered into our everyday language, just like the other taxman’s words have – if Matthew indeed wrote the gospel that bears his name.  From ‘Timorous beasties’ and ‘love being like a red, red rose’ to the highly relevant for today’s international conflicts ‘man’s inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn’.  And I was pleased to see the letter by 100 Muslims in the Independent on Thursday denouncing the extremist group ISIS as not being true to Islam.  For Matthew, his golden rule ‘Do to others as you would have them do to you’ has become a maxim many try to live by.

Jesus met Matthew at the tax booth and called him to follow him.  He left the booth.  But later that night many tax collectors and sinners came to dinner and heard the healing words of Christ.  Putting those into practice while remaining at the tax booth, while keeping the day job, is the calling for most people.  The moral codes which flow from it actually make good business sense and are a model for good customer relations.  Treating people properly matters.  Our consciences need, in Robert Burns’ words, the anchor of ‘a correspondence fixed with heaven’.  Following Jesus brings a spirituality that copes with life in the thick of life; it is not one that compartmentalises these into separate spheres that do not meet.  When we come to the cathedral we are not coming to a place that escapes from the world, but like the couple with their map, we come to find the route for when we leave.

1 Ann Matheson (2014) The Essential Robert Burns Alloway Publishing page 101

Sermon preached at Peterborough Cathedral, Feast of Matthew, Sunday 21st September 2014

The Cross - Holy Rood - logo of self giving love

A few years ago I was involved in a ‘branding’ exercise for a cathedral – not here, but in Ripon where I was then a member of the chapter.  We were commissioning a new logo and the work involved for those pitching their designs was incredible.  Everything from position on the page to how it should be used, the size and fonts for any accompanying text were specified.  Our diocese has a similar document for its reworked logo and it is common practice in commercial organisations.  The thinking behind this is that the logo conveys an instant message about the company and product, and understandably no one wants to mess up that message by careless iconography.  So the best logos are instantly recognizable and convey a positive message; they bring the product or organisation to mind.  Millions of pounds are invested each year into getting this right and it is a specialized industry.

Today is Holy Cross Day.  The cross has been the central logo for the Christian Church since the 4^th century.  It tells the story of Christianity: Christ died and rose from the dead.  An instrument of grotesque torture and execution has become the symbol of faith and hope.  The cross meets some of the criteria for a good branding symbol.  It is instantly recognizable.  It brings to mind the product – Christianity.  It is in universal use and so is up there with the biggest names.  But what message does it convey?  It is far from being a cosy, comfortable image.

The cross is an outrage.  It should shock us.  We have it displayed on the rood screen dominating the view as you look towards the East end of this church.  It is prominently displayed at the front of St Luke’s too.  When you go into the cathedral a golden Christ on the cross greets you, hanging from the roof, dominating the vast space of the nave.  It is an image in stained glass windows and carved in wood.  The picture is of a man enduring unspeakable torture and dying.  Sadly it does not just belong to the past.  There are Christians being persecuted and executed by crucifixion by the Islamic State extremists today, along with many beheadings, not least the news today of the murder of aid worker David Haines.  Our archbishop has encouraged us to pray for him and his family.  Today is a reminder that Christianity has a high price at its heart.  Grace and salvation do not come cheaply.

And yet we have it made out of gold and silver so that it looks shiny and sanitized of its agony and suffering.  It is an item of jewelry.  The Holy Rood is the name of a palace in Scotland, famous for Mary Queen of Scots, whose burial is recorded in our parish registers.  Across the road is the Scottish Parliament building which will be the centre of our political debate this week.  When we are looking for statements or images of identity and our dependency or independence or better interdependence, the name of that palace, the Holy Rood, is what defines us as Christians.  This is the love that gives of itself, seeks to draw us together and set us free from the oppression of sin and death.

The cross is not just the means of a death so that life could win through in the resurrection, the cross brings the pains and suffering into the heart of God’s love.  The branding document for Christianity has this notion within it.  The Christian faith does not avoid pain and suffering, it does not push the darkness of sin and death away, but embraces all of these.  It is a sign and a statement that we do not believe God remains separate from the life we experience.  God is not just some absentee landlord who sets the world in motion and then exists detached from it.  The cross, the Holy Rood, is the profound statement of faith that God is in the thick of life, messy and painful as it is at some time for all of us.  Those who have been abused and no one seemed to care, the actress Samantha Morton being the latest to come out to tell her story, the unknown many suffering under the brutality of Islamic State extremists, they are not abandoned to their fate, even if like Jesus they may cry out in their despair “My God why have you forsaken me”. 

The cross as our symbol is a statement that Christ died.  He didn’t pretend.  He wasn’t rescued at the final moment.  He wasn’t assumed into heaven as a protected figure beyond pain.  He was made vulnerable to the point where the worst of human depravity could be let loose on him.  He could be and was made as nothing to be extinguished and destroyed.  The idea that God can subject his own presence in human form to that level of vulnerability is mind blowing.  The expectation of our world is that he would blast all would be assailants with death rays, instantly melting all opposition.  What we present in the cross is a God whose strength is seen in weakness, who lets go of all control and manipulation so that he may pass through it.  It is a remarkable tenet of faith and as a symbol is astounding in its raw power and vulnerable self-giving.

This is all because, in the Christian picture of God, it is in the nature of God to give, to pour out of his very self.  This is the origin of the universe, of creation.  It is a model for our own living.  When we try to grasp and control, when we become obsessed by power and domination, we lose the very thing we want to acquire because we can never hold these things for long.  Mortality and death are inevitable.  But when we let go and risk everything as if we have nothing to lose we find that we gain far more than we ever could.  Because while we deserve nothing, can claim nothing as of right, not even our life because it is a gift, we find that the gift that is life and new life becomes all the more present.  It is a strange phenomenon that the more we give the more we receive back, the more we let go of grasping the more we are able to hold.  It’s not an easy message to learn, but one that becomes liberating.  It is hospitable, it shares and it is generous.

Yesterday our Diocesan Synod meeting in Northampton passed a motion calling on the government to welcome to this country those who are suffering appalling abuse under Islamic State extremists and to support them in their hour of need.  As Bishop Donald said we don’t want to see the Middle East emptied of ancient Christian churches and peoples, but they are being murdered and do need help.  This is an expression of the hospitable, sharing and generous love of the cross.  The only reason to reject them is to want to horde and live in fear that someone else may share the rich bounty we have.  When we do share it we will find it tastes so much better.  That’s a theological rationale for it.  The other is just pure human compassion for people experiencing unthinkable brutality and hatred.  As Christians they share our name, they share the cross and so we share that cross with them in loving and longing for their welfare.

The cross is the logo of our faith.  It shows us that when we try to grasp and possess we ultimately lose everything.  When we let go, when we live with self-giving and sacrificial love we gain everything that matters.  Open, generous and hospitable.  That is the love of God on the cross, it is the message of the true Holy Rood.  May it shape us and our friends in Scotland this week and in the years to come.

Sermon preached in Peterborough Parish Church, Holy Cross Day, Sunday 14th September 2014