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Chapter 2: the qualities of the abbot

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In a monastery he is Christ’s representative…

What is leadership?

As I have sat with, prayed through and read the Rule of St. Benedict over the last three weeks the question of the role and significance of an abbot in the life of a person who desires to take on a form of monastic life has been pressing. I suspect the abbot has to be important if, before anymore details over the running and understanding of the monastic life is explored, this pragmatic, as well as spiritual, description of the character and role of the abbot is introduced.

In recent decades the role of a leader has become increasingly emphasized within churches. We now have a Global Leadership Conference and Holy Trinity Brompton host a large leadership conference in the Albert Hall. This striving towards better leaders makes me feel uncomfortable. The strategy and the techniques are taught with such ease that it seems that anyone can be a leader if they know the right stuff and do the right thing. I can agree that anyone can be a leader but it is a calling given by God and seen by others.

St. Benedict seems to be keen to emphasize the responsibility of leadership within the monastic life as being heavily spiritual; there are management concerns, yes, but this ‘leader’ ‘will be accountable on Judgement Day for his teaching and the obedience of his charges’, ‘he should know that the greater his trust, the greater the responsibility’ and he ‘must not undervalue or overlook the salvation of his charges. Thus he must always remember his task is the guidance of souls (for which he will be held accountable) and he must put aside the worldly, transitory and petty things.’

During my time at Cranmer Hall, Durham, we had a module of Christian Leadership. At the time I sat this module it was being taught by two godly men with one style or model of leadership: the chief executive. This model is useful within large organized congregations where there are lots of ‘departments’ working efficiently to share resources, both material and human, towards growth.

I have, in the past, been very critical of this approach to leadership and, although I have mellowed and grown to appreciate the strengths of such approach I remain questioning of the common expressions of it. My critique comes in how theology and spirituality is shaped by a model and the leadership of Jesus becomes too strategic and ‘task’ orientated. I have seen and experienced great harm done to people with this managerial approach to oversight and wisdom, grace and forgiveness have been squeezed too much in favour of the growth of the church and its reputation.*

The last session in our Christian Leadership module was led by Rev. David Day, a retired minister and ex-principal of St John’s College, Durham. His session was entitled ‘The Spirituality of Leadership’. I remember at the end of this session many of us held the double sided piece of A4 paper he produced as notes and knew that this was what the whole course should have been based on. I don’t want to explore Day’s session on leadership but one thing has sustained me as I took on an ordained leadership role within God’s church. It is a prayer of St Aelred of Rievaulx, an abbot.

To you, my Jesus, I confess, therefore;
to you, my Saviour and my hope,
to you, my comfort and my God, I humbly own
that I am not as contrite and as fearful as I ought to be
for my past sins;
nor do I feel enough concern about my present ones.
And you, sweet Lord,
have set a man like this over your family,
over the sheep of your pasture.
Me, who take all too little trouble with myself,
you bid to be concerned on their behalf;
and me,
who never pray enough about my own sins,
you would have pray for them.
I, who have taught myself so little too,
have also to teach them.
Wretch that I am, what have I done?
What have I undertaken?
What was I thinking of?
Or rather, sweetest Lord, what were you thinking of regarding this poor wretch?
(St Aelred of Rievaulx, ‘Treatises and Pastoral Prayer’ (Michigan: Cistercian Publications, 1995) p.107-108)

In this prayer I hear so much of Thomas Merton’s spirituality and it resonates with me. There’s a shared outlook on humanity, sin and this overwhelming sense of the grace of God. Humility is inescapable in this prayer and the prayers of other monastic writers.

As I read St. Benedict’s ‘qualities’ of an abbot I was struck by the expectations placed upon one person. The wisdom required for this role is impossible, unless you were the second incarnation of Christ Himself. It is easy to read this, in our current culture, fascinated with ‘the leader’, as a job description; things necessary to be called ‘a leader’. As an assistant curate in the church of England I’m aware of my assessment criteria to successfully prove to be ordained and affirmed as a minister in Christ’s church.

I try to not look at the Church Times’ classified sections as churches advertise for ‘rector’, ‘vicar’ and ‘minister’s but they may as well call a spade a spade and advertise for ‘Jesus Himself’. The tasks and qualities required as an ideal candidate is far beyond any fallen human being. I was glad to find an article written by ‘The Quotidian Cleric’ entitled, ‘The Perfect Job Advert’. What I like about it is it’s acceptance of the state of the human person behind the role of leader.

I think it’s important to note the title for chapter 64, ‘Election of the abbot’. It begins,

Always remember, concerning the election of an abbot, that he should be chosen by the entire community…

we will explore that in 62 weeks!

A leader is, before God, just another monk, dearly loved but desiring no individuality. As St. Benedict says,

…let everyone stay in his own place for “whether bond or free we are all one in Christ” (Rom. 2:11) and are equal in the service of the Lord; with god there is no respecter of individuals.

An abbot should not desire the role of authority for himself and should, along with the other monks, take responsibility for his own faithfulness and obedience under God. From this place, the call to discipline and rebuke is tempered with grace and humility. Love comes easier if you start from that place.

There is a conflict, however, within me. As the church in England heads into a missional mode of being, there is requirement for strategy and communication of discerned priorities. This focuses those, given authority by others, to make task orientated decisions. The pressure and skills needed to do this are greater and more stressful than we imagine; particularly if you add to this the expectation to also be aware of the emotional responses of many people as they hear and respond to the decision.

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The Role of the Monks

If an abbot is called forth by the community then they support him. Even if they don’t see him as ‘Christ’s representative’ they are called to encourage him to be transformed into His likeness. No abbot is perfect because no human is. The qualities outlined in this chapter of St. Benedict’s Rule are not to be achieved prior to appointment but are rather the pattern that God will now shape them into. The abbot, after appointment, now looks to allowing God to shape him in this particular way.

I am increasingly convinced we should begin discussing the relationship between role and gifting in that order. It is commonly spoken of in these terms: one receives spiritual gifts, given by grace to all, and with those you discover the call to a particular ministry within God’s church.

Firstly, the ministry is in the Kingdom of God and not solely activities run within church structures.

Secondly, I see, through Scripture, men and women being called first and then equipped second; Abraham and Sarah, Moses, Samuel, David, Mary, Peter, Matthew… Humility is easier to receive if you have nothing else given. All calls from God should begin with humble confused as to how we could possibly do what He is asking of us. If we, when we hear his call into a particular ministry/task say “Oh, that makes sense because you’ve given me these gifts to do it.” Then there’s no humility; you are trusting the gift before the giver.

And thirdly, the concern I have with the pattern of discussion around spiritual gifts and ministry is that if the gifts are given before any task is commanded by God, then you limit what God will ask of you. This is particularly instilled when we are given only one spiritual gift. If we begin by asking “Lord, what is it you want me to do, poor as I am?” then God can call you anywhere to do anything. It is right and Scriptural to respond, “How am I to do that, poor as I am?” And He will respond, “I will give to you what you need; the words, the strength, the insight. Follow my spirit and all things will be made available.” Once the task is done we turn and ask again, “What now?” He can still, if He is able to give more gifts for new tasks, command you to go somewhere else, where you have no experience and no skills. “That’s foolishness!” you say, “Why doesn’t He keep me on my career ladder building on from where I ended?” Because, it’s not about you can do but what He can do. He wants to show His glory and power because there is no other way you could achieve things He wants to achieve through you. Take Moses. There is no way he could have accomplished the Exodus. The glory went to God.

The role of the other monks, therefore, is to receive the abbot’s ministry as from God. To pray that God will use the abbot for the spiritual growth of His Kingdom. The abbot will not always do so as obediently as the monks or God would have liked but they forgive and encourage to see God use the broken vessel for His glory and His Kingdom.

Reflection

An Abbot is God’s representative within the monastery. The question, ‘Who is my abbot?’ will remain until there is a community from which the abbot is called.

I’m currently exploring a shared life within a small ‘missional community’ called ‘Burning Fences‘. These people are dear friends all exploring faith and are at different places on their journey with God. We come together not around a set of creedal statements but rather a shared desire to know and experience God (whatever that might mean). In a way, a spiritual community is growing amongst us and I remain expectant that God will reveal something profound in our midst. I wait for the revelation of what God is doing in, with and through us.

Until then, I continue to look to God as Abba and pray,

Abba, Father, what am I to do today that will encourage Your Kingdom to grow? Send me out, in the power of Your Spirit and not my own, to live and work for Your praise and Your glory.

Come Lord Jesus

*Please note that I am aware the reality of leadership in these contexts and this model is not as sinister as I depict and I am being overly general. I say this to paint an extreme in order to clarify the distinction between what I see in one model and what might be offered in another.

50 Questions

I have gone through many seasons of journal writing over the years. Each season brings a different approach and style. Some have been noting down words of encouragement or discernment, whilst other times I have, in Anne Frank style, written to my own ‘Kitty’. I have used this site at times for public journalling and have vulnerably wrestled with the morality of such practice. As I tried out different forms of writing I have been on that constant search for a voice which I feel comfortable with. The voice which I can use to interact with the world around me.

Just before New Year’s Eve, I came across an article by Sonia Simon entitled ‘The New Year’s Writing Resolution You Can Actually Keep’. (I am grateful to Maggi Dawn for reposting it.) So for a week I have been writing for 20 minutes a day. I have not concerned myself with grammar, spelling, editting, format, style; I have just put pen to paper and written what came into my head in the way that appears to quickest.

I decided to use an old book I started journalling in at the end of June 2013 whilst on retreat. Reading back over the last week and the three or four entries prior to that I have been encouraged to hear a definite style appearing:

Short sentences. Adjective triplets and, of course, rhetorical or open ended questions.

I have even begun, after just a week, seen some themes surfacing from the pages and I am excited to see what other material reveals itself over the coming weeks and months.

I do, however, want to share the questions which seem to be buzzing round my head. They are not necessarily connected, although I’m sure connections can easily be made. They are not necessarily ‘unanswered’ in that I may already know the answers but I still need to ask them. This is essentially what I’m realising about the ‘style’ I seem to write in…

Questions invite. Questions inspire. Questions invoke within us imagination and, instead of just filling the world with more noise and another voice clambering to be heard, questions accentuate silence, however brief.

But there is a balance to be made.

A friend brought to my attention the following YouTube clip.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCNIBV87wV4#t=171

The man is right, of course. I have noted, many times this vocal tick our culture has developed. He is right to ask whether ‘we are the most aggressively inarticulate generation to come along since, you know, a long time ago.’? Are we so wary of standing up and declaring something and pinning our metaphorical colours to the mast that we fall too swiftly into the open question format? (He asks ironically!)

With that in balance I offer some questions, asked from a place of vague certainty and with no agenda but to invite, inspire and invoke from within you, my dear reader, your own imagination and to accentuate some the silence from which all truth is birthed.

1. Who do I trust?

2. Where is my ego’s adversary?

3. I am Frodo fighting the Ring of my own ego; where is my Sam?

4. Why has God called me?

5. Has God called me?

6. Is my ministry just another successful imagination exercise; my ability to construct and fabricate a fantasy, incarnating a wish so people believe it to be true and I get what I want?

7. Where do I go from here?

8. If I seek comfort how can I be sure that I’m not shying away from ego-death?

9. What do I mean by ‘falling on the mercy of God’, when and where does it come and in what form?

10. What right have you to recite my statutes or take my covenant on your lips? (Psalm 50:16)

11. What drives me to speak so much in public?

12. How do I control/bridle my tongue, this fire?

13. Why do I still feel unsettled?

14. Why does the Lord call us to remember?

15. Are my expectations too high?

16. Are they unrealistic?

17. Is it wrong to feel like I’m in ‘hell’ and, on some level, enjoying it?

18. Where will I find Him?

19. When will He appear?

20. What is He doing?

21. Where are the links; the logical sequences?

22. How does a Being so distinct from me communicate with me?

23. How does He draw near to me?

Hide-and-Seek-Game 24. What is an encounter with the ‘hidden’ God like?

25. Can God hide?

26. When will the game be over?

27. What ends the game: to find the unfindable person?

28. Is there a place in my house which would be good for writing?

29. Do I seek to be different?

30. Do I get a kick out of standing out from the crowd?

31. ‘The community of the lost and finding’; I wonder what that would look like?

32. Is that what God is opening up for me in my situation?

33. What will bring peace to all the voices we try to hold together?

34. Would it be possible to do stand up comedy as a ‘vicar’?

35. How do I get rid of this painful cramp in my hand? (I have since discovered it is called ‘mogigraphia’. Thank you, @yrieithydd)

36. Is my pedantry, in anyway useful?

37. Can God do something with it?

38. Is He rather wanting to help me shed it from my character?

39. What am I expecting in 2014?

40. What am I hoping for in 2014? (Thank you to Luke Bacon for those last two.)

41. If the future cannot change then where is the hope of transformation of oneself and creation as a whole?

42. What would a spiritual discipline of foolishness look like?

43. Is God the only being able ‘to humble Himself’ (Philippians 2:8)?

44. Can one humble themselves?

45. Is it not an act done to you rather than done by you?

46. Where does the difficulty to speak in popular images come from?

47. Why do I feel they are too ‘…and that’s a bit like Jesus.’?

48. Why am I not excited or pleased to be doing this work?

49. Is my heart in God’s hand, attuned to His pulse?

50. How can one tell if the work you are doing is the work He has for you?

Chapter 1: the different kind of monks and their customs

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…let us with God’s help establish a rule for Cenobites who are the best kind of monks.

Who is my community?

This opening chapter is sober reading. I return to the wise warning of Sister Catherine Wybourne,

Pray and read. I didn’t speak about RB until I’d lived under it in community for 15 years.

It is obvious that Cenobites, ‘those who live in a monastery waging their war under a rule and an abbot’ are St. Benedict’s ideal (aside from the Anchorites/hermits). This is right, of course, for not only am I reminded of God’s statement in Genesis, ‘“It is not good for the man to be alone.”’ (Genesis 2:18) but also we return to the question we asked last week, ‘Who is my master?’

It is clear that the monastic life is never to be done in isolation; an individual, personal choice unconnected from others but, rather, a public commitment to others with whom one binds oneself. St. Benedict establishes early, the call to monastic life is the call to a cenobiac life (the Latin derivation of the Greek koinos, “common”, and bios, “life”.) The Sarabaites and the gyratory monks are spoken of with such distain, ‘unschooled’, ‘untested’, ‘soft’, ‘openly lying to God’,

It is better to be silent as to their wretched life style than to speak.

Philip Lawrence, OSB, Abbot of Christ in the Desert, helpful suggests,

I suppose that we are all Sarabaites to some degree, and must fight constantly against that tendency…Humanly, of course, we all tend to call holy what we believe in and to consider forbidden that which we dislike. This is part of the gift of having a tradition that we can accept and grow in. (Philip Lawrence, “Chapter 1: The Kinds of Monks”, Benedictine Abbey of Christ in the Desert, January 8 2014, http://christdesert.org/Detailed/66.html)

The Sarabaites and the gyratory monks both are marked, not by the lack of other human beings but by the lack of a human authority; an abbot who is the focus and teacher of a Rule. A community, it seems, must have a shared set of principles (A Rule) and one who lives it out and interprets the Rule for the community (An Abbot) in order for it to be beneficial. It is of no use engaging with a ‘community’ if you are not willing to be obedient to others; sacrificing personal desires and will and allowing yourself be taught. Again, Lawrence wisely observes,

There is a real formation in having to deal with other human persons in a community and with having to learn to live with a superior who is not perfect and yet to whom we give our obedience.(Lawrence, http://christdesert.org/Detailed/66.html)

Even the Anchorites ‘have spent much time in the monastery testing themselves.’ Here I am reminded of Thomas Merton, a Trappist monk and spiritual writer of the 20th century, who yearned to retreat into a hermitage but was continually called to remain in the community at The Abbey of Gethsemani,

The hope of finding a more solitary life now seems to be quite well founded. There are definite possibilities, but also there are still very great obstacles to be overcome, not least of which is my own Abbot. (October 8, 1959, Thomas Merton to Jean Leclercq, ‘Survival or Prophecy?: The letters of Thomas Merton and Jean Leclercq (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002) p.83)

This statement of desire to enter a solitary life was penned in 1959. Seven years earlier in Merton’s journals he is making decisions to enter into solitude,

I am now almost completely convinced that I am only really a monk when I am alone in the old toolshed Reverend Father gave me. (September 3, 1952, Thomas Merton, ‘A Search for Solitude: The Journals of Thomas Merton: Volume Three 1952-1960’ (New York: HarperCollins, 1997) p.14)

Remembering that Merton entered the monastic life in 1941, that’s a cenobiac life of 10 years before coming to a definite conviction to becoming an ‘Anchorite’ (although Merton always disliked the categories given to different types of monk). Even then, He would have to wait until 1965 until entering his own hermitage and living the life of solitude.

The Common Life

There is no escaping this question of human community with whom to live out the ‘common life’. As an ordained minister in a parish, who is my community? Who are the people who will share a ‘common life’ with me? The answer should be the congregation with whom I find myself but this is problematic.

There’s a popular notion that it is difficult and dangerous to be ‘friends’ with members of your own congregation. The reason is given that you can’t be close and intimate with one member with out being so with others. I think this is a silly notion and dismiss it. Ordained ministers must have personal relationships and will always have closer and stronger relationships with some members than others. Unless one either cuts themselves off from all close relationships then you will always spend more time and be more open with one, more than another.

The Cenobite, however, in order to give themselves completely to a ‘common life’ must know the trust and safety of deep relationship. It is difficult to enter into a life-long committed relationship without some degree of trust. Vulnerability requires a sense of safety, however small that might be. Here is where, community becomes tricky in parish.

Ordained ministry can become very much one sided in terms of commitment to relationship and community life. The reasons people attend church are many and varied from duty to a deep call/vocation to the life and work of God’s Church. Some turn up just for a quick fix, or because it is just part of their routine; they desire nothing more than to hear the same old words and to be comforted and propped up by a sense that it’s still going on. Others go to be challenged, to be given something to think and pray about; they want to reflect deeply about their faith, to encounter God. As a pastor to all of these, as well as to those in your parish that don’t attend church, you want to enter into their lives to be there in every aspect. You want to be able to speak words of comfort, consolation and challenge at the important moments of life; ultimately, you want to point to God at those times when He’s most needed.

This desire for that kind of relationship and community is not shared with everyone or fully understood by others. Some actively reject such intrusion whilst others seek it too much. Whichever way people go, the impetus comes from you. There’s rarely a sharing of life, equal and balanced in a ‘middle of the road’ Anglican parish. To call a whole congregation to a more committed ‘common life’ is not desired by all members as we all, as Lawrence suggested, ‘we all tend to call holy what we believe in and to consider forbidden that which we dislike.’ Where might the cenobiac commitment to other human beings challenge the consumerist approach seen at different degrees within parish ministry?

In the Diocese of York we have been looking at Five Marks of Growing. one of these is ‘commitment’. ++Sentamu wants to see disciples of Jesus growing in commitment. This must, I feel, include, at some level, a growth in the commitment to a common life and a more ‘monastic’ call.

So what does it look like to be in community, in a parish, when even members of your congregation aren’t interested or inclined to increase their commitment beyond their Sunday attendance?

I’d want to suggest a formalizing of the observable norm in most congregations: a central core group and a fringe. This is not about creating a boundary around the core people, stating some are ‘in’ and others ‘out’ but rather a marking of a central point with which one can place oneself; a shared set of principles (A Rule). Most congregations have this in some form or another but often it remains unspoken, and therefore unshared, or it is spoken of ambiguously (the generic, ‘In, Up and Out’).

Reflection

To be protected against myself I need to take up the yoke of A Rule, under the obedience to an Abbot.

I have committed, for three years, to the Rule of the Northumbria Community but I am currently struggling with the lack of a physical community around me with whom to share that walk. I also see the need of an Abbot under whom I can allow the Rule to shape and challenge me. The leaders of the Northumbria Community are available but are not sharing life with me; the everyday moments. Without an Abbot I am a Sarabaite with all the tendencies described in the Rule of St. Benedict.

Holy Trinity, Divine Community, You make us to share life with others. Help me to establish a rule under which I might learn the joys of obedience. Show me the human abbots with whom I can share the common life and to whom I can look for protection against my ‘unschooled desires’.

Come, Lord Jesus

Prologue

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Listen, my son, and with your heart hear the principles of your Master.

Who is my Master?

The, almost direct, quoting of the Book of Proverbs must be deliberate.

Hear, my child, your father’s instruction (Proverbs 1:8)

In Proverbs, wisdom is explored in a series of parallels and paradoxes and from what I have read of the Rule it is similar in approach. There is deeply practical pieces of advice but each of these prosaic ‘teachings’ has a subtle challenge to issues of the heart.

As I set out on this journey, I turned to Sister Catherine Wybourne, a Benedictine nun and Twitter user, to ask for her advice on reflecting on the Rule of St. Benedict. Her reply was characteristically wise,

Pray and read. I didn’t speak about RB until I’d lived under it in community for 15 years. Not sure if that’s a tip or a warning!

It would be too arrogant to dismiss the clear instruction of St. Benedict to listen to the human abbot, the earthly father but there is a clear double teaching here, I feel, to see an abbot as an ambassador for God, our heavenly Father. As Benedict continues it is hard to discern when he is talking of following God and when he is talking of necessity to live out the Rule. It is fair to say, however, that I am challenged in this; who is my Master? Who has oversight of my obedience to God to ensure I am not just following my own flights of fancy and desires? Who is my abbot?

Seeking His Kingdom

Throughout the Prologue I see the word ‘Kingdom’ jump out. It reminds me of a comment a dear brother made to me in Advent,

You speak of the Kingdom of God much more than other Anglicans I know. They prefer to speak of the Church.

What he meant was I speak more about growing the Kingdom of God than I do about getting people into church. Don’t get me wrong, I would love to see Christ’s Church grow but I don’t see that as our main objective. I believe, rightly or wrongly, that the Church will grow when the Kingdom grows. If Christians receive Christ in them when they open the doors of their heart to Him, that same Spirit will seek to unite with itself it will draw us to others who have Christ in them the hope of glory. Christ calls his disciples to be his hands and feet and if we, as individual Christians believe that Christ works through us by His Spirit, we should also believe that others must receive Christ’s Spirit and thus be conduits for His mercy and grace. Why wouldn’t want to be there to see that manifest in the reality of life?

I also don’t think that ‘other Anglicans’ disagree with me on that but I do feel we all fall easily into a trap of speaking about Church much more than Kingdom. We have found a pearl and buried it in a field but now we spend more time protecting and tending the field than we do about remembering the pearl. When the field is threatened we protect it with all our lives. It’s not that we have forgotten about the pearl but it lies in the ground all the while that we are unsure whether it still resides where we buried it or if it has been stolen away already!

I ‘wish to be sheltered in this Kingdom’ to possess the pearl, or rather to let it possess me* and so I ‘ask our Lord (with the prophets),

Lord, who shall live in Your Kingdom? or who shall rest on Your holy mountain? (Psalm 15:1)

Benedict outlines clearly the call to wholehearted commitment to obedience to God’s commandments and ridding ourselves of inner desires to stray from ‘God’s path’. Our response is to ‘prepare ourselves, in body and soul, to fight under the commandments of holy obedience.’ It will not be easy nor can we do this on our own. God becomes, once more our teacher and Master but equally we return to the call to commitments to a community.

Do not fear this and retreat, for the path to salvation is long and the entrance is narrow… Never departing from His guidance, remaining in the monastery until death, we patiently share in Christ’s passion, so we may eventually enter into the Kingdom of God.

The Prologue opens and invites a novice to step in and take on the life-long and life-giving commitment to God. We submit our wills to His in pursuit of knowing His Kingdom born in us and the world which we inhabit. God is our teacher and Master but because we are weak and prone to disobedience He graciously gives us earthly ambassadors who have walked His paths longer than us and thus community centred on a shared seeking of the principles of His Kingdom is necessary in our discipleship.

Reflection

As I set out, what is God inviting me into? The invitation, for me, is the same as when it first was given: to radically submit to God’s will for my life, moment by moment. To discern that I need to know His voice and humble myself to obedience of His ambassadors and gifts of discipline until His Kingdom is established here amongst us.

Father and Master, I submit. Your Kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Place me with whom Thou wilt. Gather Your people around me that I might be defended within the Body of Christ. Defended from ‘the tortures of Hell’ and from myself.

Come, Lord Jesus.

*This idea is explored by Peter Rollins in ‘Advent’ in his book, How (not) To Speak Of God (London: SPCK, 2006) p.103-108

Parish Monasticism?

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Suscipe me, Domine, secundum eloquium tuum, et vivam; et non confundas me ab expectatione mea.

Receive me, O Lord, according to your word, and I shall live: and let me not be ashamed of my hope.

Since training for ordained ministry at Cranmer Hall in Durham, I have felt a call to a form of monastic life. Monastic life comes in many different forms and, with the rise of New Monasticism in the UK and USA, as well as other places, the word ‘monasticism’ has become a bit of a buzz word. I think this is down to a move of the Spirit; a conviction to return to ‘life together’. Our society and culture loves the concept of community but it has, as I have said before, ‘become vacuous by its overuse’. Community, in the religious/spiritual sense, does not just mean individual autonomous units living side by side but rather means a breakdown of our personal boundaries to enter into a deep communion with others. In this respect I’m indebted to the writings of John Zizioulas, Thomas Merton, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Henri Nouwen, Miroslav Volf and Stanley Hauerwas, who have become significant in the New Monastic movement*.

Whilst in Durham I encountered the Celtic Saints; Cuthbert, Bede and, of course, Aidan! Through their lives and witness I was inspired to live out my discipleship in a meaningful and deeper way. It wasn’t that I wasn’t inspired by other, non-monastic Christians but there was something about the commitment they showed to their Lord that opened my eyes.

I am an ‘all or nothing’ kind of guy. I have always been passionate and if my heart and gut isn’t fully committed to something I rarely engage. It’s been a good thing to have been brought up to be intensely fascinated by the world in which I live. My mother, one of my greatest inspirations, was a teacher fueled by her love of learning. she finds the world an awesome place and, with child like wonder, explores thoughts, ideas and experiences. After separating from my dad, she never re-married. She loved the solitary life (well with three children!) Over the last five or ten years, as her children left home and she experienced increasing personal freedom with her space and time, she has discovered a spirituality that not only enriches her but has transformed her.

She has struggled and experienced a difficult period within those years which had a major impact on that spiritual awakening but whatever has grown in her has been present in her, certainly, through my life. I look at her and she is a ‘monastic’ person; a woman who structures her day around encounters with her heavenly Father, who dedicates every moment of her life to prayer and service and who intentionally seeks God in the everyday.

As I look at my own life and come across decisions I find myself wanting to live a life like my mother because through her I see Christ, his compassion and his Passion. I see the fruit of a life that is dedicated in this way where integrity of character is based on an undiluted desire to be transformed and aligned to that of Jesus Christ, the image of the invisible God.

Whilst discovering the Celtic Saints I also found the Northumbria Community who, from the moment I read their Rule of Life, I knew would have an important part of my discipleship.

It was during my second year at college when I experienced the pain of a particular approach to ministry. This experience un-settled me (that’s an understatement, to say the least!) I found myself uncertain of what I was being called to as a minister in the Church of England. Most of my reflections around this time were around ‘home’ and the feeling of ‘exile’ was very prominent. In this emotional landscape I visited the Northumbria Community and the language that they used was a fresh homecoming… but that’s not quite right: A homecoming in the desert. The feeling of ‘edge’, ‘fringe’ and being an ‘outsider’ remained but I felt a peace about that place.

Since that time I’ve been grateful to God for sending me to the Northumbria Community and I have dedicated myself to attempting to live under their Rule of Life. I began their novitiate process and have been exploring it ever since. That process has, in recent months come to a halt as I struggle to ‘fit’ into parish ministry. It is this struggle which has encouraged me to start writing on the ‘monastic’ call to my life, whatever that ends up looking like.

Over Advent this year, I read Esther de Waal’s ‘Living with Contradiction: Benedictine wisdom for Everyday Living’. I enjoyed it, partly because it is clearly an inspiration for the Northumbria Community’s love of paradox but also because it opened up the cloisters of Benedictine monasteries to everyday life. It made me ask the question, ‘is it possible to have an open monastic house in a parish?’ What might it look like to be a parish priest with a monastic call?

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During a stay at Nether Springs (the mother house of the Northumbria Community) I was speaking to Rev. Pete Askew about this sense of call to monastic life. He wisely suggested,

It’s impossible to live the way of life we live here at Nether Springs and be a parish priest. You’d have to be very stubborn to achieve it.

Then he looked at me and joked,

You may be able to do it!

There’s something in my gut which says I should try. I will probably fail. I will probably discover that I am naiive and have completely misunderstood the monastic call. I have reservations about the outcome but I still feel the journey should be made and if, after prayer and seeking, God leads me to a place of humility where I learn from the wisdom of obedience then so much the better… I guess that is my aim; to learn what obedience means.

I plan to read and pray through the Rule of St. Benedict. I will take one chapter each week and reflect on it. This is not (and I want to emphasize this) an exercise of understanding Benedictine monasticism. I will not write my reflections as advice on how to live out the Rule; I am in no way qualified or experienced in that. My reflections will be a personal journey of how I read the Rule of St. Benedict, what the way of life, that is lived out by those who have committed their life to it, inspires in me, encourages in me and challenges me. I do hope it is of benefit to others but more than that I do hope God uses this journey of exploration to speak to me and shape me into what would be of benefit to him.

Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near. (Isaiah 55:6)

*Of course there a female writers, Esther de Waal, Karen Ward, Nadia Bolz-Weber and Sister Catherine Wybourne.

keno charis: ruptured for you (a liturgy for Burning Fences)

(Burning Fences is a small community based in York which is exploring how to sing a new song in the rubble of an old world. I led this as an evening exploring the Trinity for my
fellow ‘sparrows’.)

People enter a small upper room above the city. there is a low table and cushions surrounding it.

On the low table are three bowls each with a question by it and there’s a chalice and plate set up. People are invited to write on scraps of paper responses to the following questions and put them into one of three bowls:

What is your ultimate question?

What is your biggest doubt?

What is missing?

When all are settled drinks for the evening are ordered. This often individualistic action is challenged with the following, seemingly restrictive commands: Everyone is to be responsible for one drink order, it cannot be their own. They, therefore, must take responsibility for another’s order. That other person cannot be the one who is responsible for their own order; the two must find a third who then links to another group…

The evening begins when the drinks order is sent downstairs.

Three people begin by reading the following,

Person 1: In an upper room, not unlike this one, the Lord stood amongst friends and shared.

Person 2: In another upper room, not unlike this one, the Lord stood amongst friends and breathed.

Person 3: In a third upper room, not unlike this one, the Lord stood amongst friends and transformed.

Narrator: Tonight we’re going to explore a mystery through three stories of upper rooms. Three and yet one. It’s one story but three points. It’s three ideas that make up one narrative. Three parts to this one mystery…

Story 1. In a tight, cramped, claustrophobic space, in a darkened corner above the city, the prophet rabbi Jesus sat amongst friends. They would meet regularly and share stories, questions, songs. There was no pattern, no formula, no entry requirement, just a desire. It was not a shared ideology or philosophy that bound them together but a shared desire… to know what it was about this rabbi who had chosen to be with them.

Despite their doubts, despairs, disillusionment, they desired, above all, to discover. To discover a way to be free. Self help, private thoughts, individualism had led to self imprisonment and they were tired of being alone. They were like sparrows desiring a hedge to call home.

Liturgy of the Sparrows

We are the sparrows who are claiming back the hedges.

Response: We are the sparrows that will not be satisfied with twigs.

We are the sparrows that are crying out for our hedges.

Response: We are the sparrows that are weary from singing lonely songs.

In our hedge, where we feel safe again,

Response: we seek our social life back, and the sooner the better.

In our hedge, where we talk things over,

Response: we make decisions, laugh if we want to and sing.

This is our story, this is our song,

and we’ll live it till it’s our reality.

A song about home is shared.

Narrator: Story 1. In a tight, cramped, claustrophobic space, in a darkened corner above the city, the prophet rabbi Jesus showed them how to be a holy community…

The narrator gets a bowl and pours warm water into it. He invites someone to have their hands washed. The act of hand washing is a more culturally applicable version of foot washing in the near east culture of Jesus. There’s an element of cleansing and preparation for food as well as retaining the intimacy of foot washing. As the narrator washes the other’s hands he says,

You have to let me wash your hands in order for me to show you love. If you refused I would not be able to show you my care for you. Allowing me to bless you with this gift is a gift to me. You have allowed me to have a relationship with you. Thank you.

The narrator passes out bowls of water and invites others to sit and receive from one another.

During all of this music is played.

When all have been washed one has left and returned with food and the drinks. Each member should pay more attention for another’s drinks than their own. All are invited to eat.

Who’d like to tell a story of a time when have you felt closest to someone else?

A time of storytelling.

Story 2. In a tight, cramped, claustrophobic space, in a darkened corner of the city, the friends sat. Huddled together in fear. Bereft. Present in body only. Absent in other respect. They had lost. Lost their nerve. Lost the fight. Lost the will. Lost Him. The prophet. Their rabbi.

He had said to them, when he was in the upper room, that he would give everything he had; he would give his life for them. He would not withdraw from the consequences of his love for them. He would be taken and drained of life. He would allow it to happen. He chose to allow it to happen. He chose to allow all people to do what they desired most because he loved.

And now he’s gone. They had lost. The thing that had brought them all together; the person who had called them to each other had left. They had hoped it was forever but he had disappointed. A vacuum now existed in their midst like empty plates where once was food. An absence where once was presence.

A song about loss is shared.

Story 2. In a tight, cramped, claustrophobic space, in a darkened corner of the city, the friends sat and embraced the abyss with all their questions:

One of the bowls that contains the responses to the question ‘What is your ultimate question?’ is passed round and the answers are read out.

The friends sat and embraced the abyss with all their doubts.

The other bowl with the responses to the question ‘What is your biggest doubt?’ is passed round and the answers read out.

The friends sat and embraced the abyss with all their emptiness and lack.

People are invited to read out the responses to the question ‘What is missing?’ from the third bowl.

Story 2. In a tight, cramped, claustrophobic space, in a darkened corner above the city, the prophet rabbi Jesus appeared to his friends. That which was lost had been returned but now a paradox… the friends still felt an absence but it felt like a presence beyond all presences; richer more fuller presence. It was like the last time he was with them but there was a deeper reality to him, to them.

He had been emptied; given all of himself. He who had said that he was God. God had given all things to him and he freely gave it all away to show them how much he loved them. His generosity knew no bounds. He had given everything, even his very self. Now he was back amongst them and showed that He was, in some way, unknowable to them, mysteriously, he was God, eternal, abundant source of all things, of life itself.

“Now do you see?” he said “All that I have I give to you… and I have a lot. I want to be emptied, again and again of all I have so that you have. All that you’re missing I give to you but the real trick is to discover that life is found when you empty of ‘having’ and satisfy the other’s need.”

“God gave to me,” he said “I give to you, but I can’t stay with you in bodily form, it’s too limited. I will return to my home and send to you the key to the Divine store cupboard. He will come and grant you access to the gifts but do not hold onto them for they, like manna in the wilderness will rot if kept in your grasp. Give, give away, give until you have nothing left and your hand will be refilled.”

“This is the secret to community. Each giving until they have nothing but, of course, this dynamic generosity creates from nothing. This is how the universe was built; generous, abundant, emptying love; love that seeks to have nothing so the other will have everything. God the Father showed His love for me by giving me the whole cosmos and more besides he continues to give until there is nothing left to give, when space and time has run out and beyond that. I showed my love to him by giving all I could and I still give… And now I give to you and call you to live with us, participate.”

“You’re all interested in what makes good human community? Humans are made in the image of God and when you live as if that were true, your actions and lives sing of eternity. You’ve dreamt of a place, a way of living that feels like the home you’ve always desired? I have considered your niche needs, disjointed designs and contradictory commands of communal contentment and this is what I offer; an urban landscape sprawling out to scenes of symbiotic existence; spaces of intimacy seeming epic. Small spaces stretch out into space unimaginable.”

“In the centre of this city is a stream sourced from a singular washing space where you can willingly wash away the weeping water from your eyes; wash away all the lies which twist distort and chastise; wash away the pain of missed goodbyes, the long held hurt when a loved one dies, all that contributes to our cries, from the inexpressible silent sighs to the African skin crawling with flies, the countless millions caught in disguise to those imaginations that devise instruments of torture that lead to our demise.

This washing water has supplies for all generations to surmise, from the one who accepts to the one who denies, yes, all are asked to step in and be baptized.”

As the friends looked at the Great Designer’s two dimensional doodles depicting detailed designs for districts of dreams; they were transported from 2D to 3D and they stood at the heart of this great project, this divine concept of collaborated dreams of home. As they scanned the scene with their senses searing with celestial resplendence, they saw it was their terrestrial city with its burnt out building bordered up, barren, broken, brittle skeletons, shells of second rate, suppressed statements of habitations, empty, abandoned, bereft of life. This vacuous void is all they’d envisioned, their vital improvements to the divine construction.

“All these buildings won’t be obstructions.” the rabbi said as He pointed to the destruction. “All of you will be part of this production; we’ll need some more. Can you get introductions? It won’t work if we resort to abductions but paint a portrait of perpetual seduction; Lilting lullabies of love. Meandering melodies of mercy. Holistic harmonies of hope. This is how we will win people to our cause. Sing to them simply of the Son who was sent to your city to speak out against injustice, racist hostility and stubborn statuses. “Sacrifice self” He said. Die to all you think defines, distinguishes, differentiate and divides. Die to all that makes you think ‘me’. That’s not how you are to be, its ‘we’, you see, us constantly, lovingly, eternally relating looking out celebratorily at creation, the manifestation of Our imagination which speaks of salvation. Stand against temptation. Participate in incarnation. Join Our nation.”

They were still in that upper room but now it seemed foreign. The rabbi was gone and they were free. They felt… called, with all creation, to participate in a Divine dance, dwelling with Him, deliberately drawing and deliberating over the debilitated definitions of themselves.

This divine creativity is now innate and it is to participate in a state where every breath is to create because the truth is we, humans can do nothing, we are pathetic, we are fragile, fragmented, foolish and frail. If it was down to us failure would frame our every fumbled attempts at life. But God doesn’t limit His giving of good gifts generously gathering His grace getting offspring and giving, blessing them with boundless benefaction and the ability to beautify the broken, black globe we abide in.

Creativity is the choice to catch the vision of His passionate parade of perpetual pleasure as He paints pictures in the palette of the sky and proclaims praises powerfully in proud oaks. Problem solving, parenthood, pottery, plumbing, all is creative in Papa’s production.

Do we care too much on product and not on process? Capitalism capturing our capability in creation. Yes, creativity is innate, equally distributed, designated, dished out. If we decide to delegate in this divine dynamism we decide to die for it is participation with His soul saving Spirit that gives life. Creativity is cooperating with our curiosity in creation, creating collaborations in community, making mutual memories made in mirth and misery shared. Stories singing through souls, sewing us, sculpting us, shaping us, scripting us into the narrative of the non-conforming Nazarene whose never-ending life and love lulls us into lucid lovers and alighting a light in our hearts, little wisps of wonder wilting the winter inside. All of us part of the process to paint the playground, perform the eternal play and promote partnership in people un-praised but packed with potential.

A song of hope and community is shared.

Story 3. In a tight, cramped, claustrophobic space, in a darkened corner above the city, Simon, who they called ‘Peter’, one of the group was stood amongst outcasts. This foreign group had not been a part of the original group of sparrows in that first upper room. They had gathered from elsewhere but he saw in them that sparrow song. He stood amongst them and remembered the night he had sat with the prophet rabbi Jesus and he had showed them God, divine community, love unadulterated and emptying of gift. Peter stood and spoke, he modelled love as he had known it, pure, from the heart of God Himself. The group were sparrows in a hedge; just for a moment. They sang, they laughed, they shared, they lived the life of communal God right in front of him.

I have shared my stories. I share them till I am empty, bereft.

Keno Charis means ‘emptying of gift’. It is the mystery at the heart of the Trinity; God in community, Father, Son and Holy Spirit; each one giving to the other attempting to be empty of all they possess in order that the other has more but in some mysterious way this creates more. God, the source of all things trying pass on all of it is the secret to life. When we live and participate in this activity we are caught in the basis of life itself and we experience God. Trinity. The Communal heart of creation from the Creator.

Liturgy of the empty and healed

Person 1: I have my music,

I give it to you,

I give it till I’m empty.

Response: We thank you. We love you till you heal.

Person 2: I have my thoughts,

I give them to you,

I give them till I’m empty.

Response: We thank you. We love you till you heal.

Person 3: I have my words,

I give them to you,

I give them till I’m empty.

Response: We thank you. We love you till you heal.

Person 4: I have my voice,

I give it to you,

I give it till I’m empty.

Response: We thank you. We love you till you heal.

Person 5: I have my heart,

I give it to you,

I give it till I’m empty.

Response: We thank you. We love you till you heal.

Person 6: I have my identity,

I share it with you,

I share it till I’m empty.

Response: We thank you. We love you till you heal.

One member of the group leads the following to close,

Find rest, O my soul, in God alone:

Response: my hope comes from Him.

We come this night to the Father,
We come this night to the Son,
We come this night to the Holy Spirit powerful:

Response: We come this night to God.

The Sacred Three
to save
to shield
to surround
the hearth
the home
this night
and every night.

Keep Your people, Lord,
in the arms of Your embrace.

Response: Shelter them under Your wings.

Be their light in darkness.

Response: Be their hope in distress.

Be their calm in anxiety.

Response: Be strength in their weakness.

Be their comfort in pain.

Response: Be their song in the night.

In peace will we lie down, for it is You, O Lord,

Response: You alone who makes us to rest secure.

In The Rubble We Will Sing

This morning I woke to the news of the government drafting legislation for three person IVF treatment to allow parents to protect babies from defective mitochondria which leaves them ‘starved of energy, resulting in muscle weakness, blindness, heart failure and death in the most extreme cases’ (BBC News page) by having the DNA from a third party used in the creation of their child. This opens up a vast set of issues on the very nature of life, family, society, etc. After this item there followed the news that surgeons’ individual performance is to be publicised to enable to help patients make informed decisions. This too holds so many much much larger questions about our lack of trust, social contracts, etc. These items come on the back of the issue of gay marriage, banking reform, energy sources, etc.

The Western world is in turmoil. There is no denying that. Change is in the air and most, if not all, people are feeling unsettled, chaotic and scared. The world is always changing; look at Heraclitus (Greek philosopher of 5th century B.C.) who is famous for saying

You never step into the same river twice.

What is scary for me (trying as best as I can to take an overview) is how lost we all are. I use the word ‘lost’ deliberately and I use the word ‘we’ with equal seriousness.

We are lost because we have no direction or rather we have no shared direction when it comes to ethcial discussions. There is an ever-increasing number of options and subjective choice as to which direction we should take that no one view can be held as better or worse than another. This is the fruit of individualism and subjectivity. I have been saying it for so long I’m tired of hearing myself say it. We have got a culture where “What I think and feel is right because it’s what I think and feel.” This unquestioning subjectivity of reality leads to a break down of society. Descartes has a lot to answer for!

We are lost in an ethical abyss with no firm footing or basis by which to discern right from wrong. Our laws and government no longer know how to speak ‘truth’ because ‘truth’ is not shared or agreed upon. The legal system now just protects us individuals from hurting other individuals by our holy, sanctified individuval lives. And we are surprised by the rise in loneliness, depression, a deep seated experience of isolation from fellow human beings, relationships hard to find and sustain and the language we use is so fluid that any meaningful expression is lost and misunderstood. At the heart of this is the current discussion on marriage. This is the sole, most important issue which is unlocking all other issues.

I am seeing this ethical debate on the nature of marriage (both the contents and the way in which it was undertaken) as a piece of dynamite ready to explode the constructs already teetering on their foundations. I say this because it cuts to the core of our discomfort and uncertainties; identity, society, trust, relationships, love, truth, the place and reality of un-tangible concepts within our society, etc. Again (and I really mean AGAIN!) I am not putting a value on either view of the outcome of this particular debate. I do not want to add to that discussion. I am trying to see the underlying issues at work and discuss those.

All around us is wobbling. We are unsure that what we’ve built our lives on is a firm and secure as we first hoped. Then this piece of dynamite is placed along side the cracks already forming and it is blown.

It feels that, in search of freedom we have become enslaved to our own feelings, emotions. Beliefs are based on hunches and gut reactions rather than wisdom.

Wisdom. Where are you, Wisdom? We have built our replica of you and parade it about while you silently watch on from the wings. We make this pathetic imitation dance and move and are deceived into think that it lives but it is but a puppet representation of your life and being.

When will we learn that this individualism and self-seeking, self-constructed framework of society is a sham of the most dangerous and destructive kind?

We have no ethics because we no longer understand the most important fact that lies, unrecognised at the core of our existence: human beings are imperfect, unknowing, ignorant fools. Each and every one of us is skewed in our perception of reality. We are drunk, hazed over with our inner selfishness. Even me. I am guilty of that most hideous of crimes: self-delusion, pride even in my own self-disgust. I am trapped and imprisoned in my own ego. My ego lashes out defensively and subtly twists all I see and do into ‘right-ness’, justifications of thoughts, ideas, policies. My ego distorts, degrades and destroys reality for self-protection. That is why I use ‘we’! I stand in the dock and am guilty!

We. We are lost. Lost in this pathetic state of life. Once the explosion happens and all comes down, as it will and should what will we do?

Firstly, I suggest, acknowledge our weakness, our shortcomings, the ethical mess we are in. To admit the devastation around us. To pick up the pieces of rubble and weep over the brokenness. To silence all voices and to stand in the reverential place of pure and painful humility.

After this we must sing sombre songs of lament. In this place of seeing ourselves as the pathetic creatures we can become we must sing a song of sorrow from our hearts with the tears of truth streaming down our faces. Allow the melody of a minor key to stir us into deeper reality and begin to experience a healing. This healing cannot come from any human source for all those fountains are corrupted and diseased; what comes from them is the fruit of a poisoned tree. No. This healing is found by those who enter this place of reality with humility and fear, reverence and care. Its source is a fearful and un-nameable place which we all would rather forget and push to one side but its reality is sure. We have buried this source with our humanistic, concrete-like concepts of progress and intellect. It is been stopped by force by us. Silently and subtly we have continued to block it up with small incremental steps and we did it all in the name of ‘liberty’ and happiness. Now all our constructs are rubble, the plug has been freed and the pure waters can be drunk from again.

Finally, I want to shout, in the silence, after the songs of lament, confession, sorrow and disgust there is a space to, together, open our eyes. In the cracks of the devastation where the water of healing, life and hope trickles fresh, new things are growing. We recognise them but have lost their names. None of us will dare move in case we trample on the young buds sprouting. The purer ones of us, the ones well versed in lamentation and self-surrender, they will move first and welcome the new arrivals on our landscape. They will smile and will speak first, naming them afresh and reminding us of their beauty and truth. We will hear it; some recalling quicker than others and we will finally share the story of reality.

At the moment this is not and never can be possible in the way we are progressing now. We are blind to the truth and we are doomed together.

Vulnerability and Disclosure

I have returned from a retreat from the Mother House of the Northumbria Community, my spiritual home. It has been a time of re calibration for me after what has seemed a difficult and pressured six months. A brother there suggested I looked “burdened”. The word didn’t quite describe my feeling appropriately. I feel ‘weathered’. Something, unexplainable almost un-definable has been wearing me out and tiring me. It has seemed, for the last six months that everything and nothing is the problem all at once; all I’ve known is something’s not right.

Whilst I was away, I began to write a personal journal; something I’ve thought about a lot but never thought I could manage it. After a period like I’ve been in it seems right that I journal down thoughts, reflections and feelings so that I can look back and see the inconsistencies and loose ends and, hopefully, see God. It seems that there are different voices within me (most of them imitations of other people who I aspire to be, which is not healthy or what a writer should do!) and when I know that the words I write will be made public it brings out a certain way of writing. My personal voice is… I don’t know… different. I can’t tell how exactly, but I hope that, over time, I will discover it and be able to share it with the public.

This discovery made me consider to stop blogging (as I have done many times before). I am not intending to write a blog about blogging; I’ve done that before (see ‘London Calling (part VII)’ post). No, what I am trying to get at is there are things which require a public voice and others which require a private voice, to begin with at least.

I am trying to accept my private and public faces. This is hard for me as I deeply desire an integrity, a one-ness to me. But vulnerability is not about a inner strip-tease or an exhibition of your soul but rather its living with an inner strength of knowing you who you are. As I don’t think it is possible for me to know who I am, as selfhood is a necessarily fluctuating concept, this knowledge is about being known rather than knowing myself.

What this leads to, therefore, is the discovery of the public voice and discerning how to support it with my private voice for the benefit of others.

For a long time I have felt a need to disclose my private voice to encourage people to question it and to shape me. This has not worked and maybe that was futile expectation anyway. This blog must be, I think, a space where I speak for and about others. It’s not a space to air personal issues and/or share my whole life just for the sake of it. I have wrestled with this a lot and, in the past, I have rejected that information (another example of the concept of selfhood in flux!) This is a season, I feel, where I need to see what it is like to limit the use of this site for issues of public interest rather than a place of personal disclosure.

Anyway, that’s all by way of introduction to the next post…

Mark’s Gospel: The beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God

This lent, Acomb Parish Church and I have been exploring the gospel of Mark in our Sunday morning services and in our home group material. The sermon series has been entitled ‘Who Do You Say That I Am?’ taken from the important verse at the heart of this gospel (Mark 8:29). Each week we’ve been looking at different ‘faces’ of Jesus; Jesus the radical, the teacher, the miracle worker, the healer, the messiah, the prophet king and now we get to the final week, the final day: Easter Day.

I’ve been aware, as we traveled through Mark’s gospel, of some strange and confusing parts of Mark’s account of Jesus. In my role as author of the daily reflections that have been published on Twitter and Facebook I’ve needed to do lots of studying on the text and I’ve needed to wrestle with those moments when you need to stop and re-read what Mark has just suggested or said; The Syrophoenician woman, the ‘loaves’, the spitting, the fig tree and many more. There’s a lot that could be said about these and I’ve wanted, through our daily reflections, to invite and encourage us, as a church, to explore and investigate, to come to some conclusions for ourselves or rather feel comfortable to ask the questions and ‘go deeper’ (a theme we’ve adopted for the year). There has been one major theme that has stood out to me through the reading and exploring of Mark which I feel is very important for us, at this time:

Who does Jesus think He is?

One question that members of my church have been asking me through out the series has been, ‘Why does Jesus tell people to not talk about what they have seen or experienced?’

This, in scholarly circles, is called ‘the messianic secret’ but I feel this may not be exactly right…

If we look at the verses where Jesus explicitly commands people not tell anyone they seem to come after major revelations of who he is. Particularly important, I feel, is the times of exorcism when the impure spirit is wanting to tell people who Jesus is. Have a quick look at all the examples, Mark 1:34, 43, 2:12, 5:43, 7:36, 8:30, 9:9. After chapter 9 Jesus seems to stop telling people to be silent and Mark 9:9 is the transfiguration which is the beginning of the story towards Jerusalem and Jesus’ crucifixion.

This is important. In fact I think it is from Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem itself, on a day we celebrate as ‘Palm Sunday’, that things start to change.

Up until this point we’ve seen a very human Jesus. Yes, he’s able to do special things (healing, miracles, teaching with authority, exorcisms, etc.) but these were not unique. Around this time there were others who were great teachers, others who healed, others who performed ‘miracles’, others who were hailed as the messiah. These ‘faces’ that we’ve been seeing are special but they are not unique to Jesus; they merely tell us that he was a very special human being.

This is where what I’ve been understanding comes into focus. People in Britain are very happy for Jesus to be called a ‘special human being’; “he was a great teacher”, “a prophet” , “a ‘miracle worker’ what ever that means” and Peter, in Mark 8:29 calls Jesus the messiah and he is praised by Jesus as receiving a revelation from God but then, quick as a flash, Peter begins to define what he means by ‘messiah’ and it reverts back to the staple understanding; “the messiah is a human sent by God”… but it was too human for Jesus.

On Palm Sunday Jesus walks into Jerusalem and he is happy for people to hail him their king. Why? Well because Jesus is now focused on revealing who he is and all other titles can disappear. What the crowd meant when they hailed him king is very different from what Jesus is about the reveal himself to be. Even the ‘king’ term is human.

You see, Mark has been hinting at a face of Jesus which has kept eluding the disciples, the crowds and the Pharisees and has alluded us a church up until this week. We, in our sermons, have been talking about Peter’s answer to the question ‘Who do you say that I am?’ We, as Christians, feel like the answer to that question is ‘You are the messiah, the Christ.’ But what do we mean by that and how quickly do we fall back on Peter’s next sentence which is aggressively shut down by Jesus?

Holy week shows, slowly and precisely, Jesus stripping back all the faces and titles and handing over the human parts of who he is to reveal himself as something altogether unique.

Good Friday is the final step as Jesus finds the strength to withstand all the mental, emotional and physical strain that being crucified as an innocent man would put him under. He does this all silently and without the typical human response of, “it’s not fair.” “I’m innocent.” He allows it all to happen. How did he, a mere human being, stay focussed on his task? You see, not even crucifixion is unique; hundreds, if not thousands, of humans were crucified and many of them did so without shouting out their innocence (usually because they knew their guilt).

The Pharisees and Pilate want Jesus to be the radical but Jesus refuses to speak.

Pilate claims him a King and Jesus shuns the title.

On the cross Jesus’ radical teaching of destroying the temple, thrown back at him (Mark 15:29-30). Jesus’ miracles and healings, thrown back at him (Mark 15:30). His messiahship, his kingship, all thrown back at him (Mark 15:31). But as Jesus hangs on the cross a centurion (famously played by John Wayne), who has seen countless crucifixions and death says something which reminds us of the very first verse of Mark’s gospel and some words which have eluded us…

Surely this man was the Son of God!

On Easter Day, Resurrection Day, Jesus reveals himself as the Son of God. For it is only God who can raise people from the dead. This is what’s truly unique about Jesus; not that He was human but that he was divine! It is through this lens that the whole gospel changes from being just some stories about a human being trying to be good and do good things into God coming to earth and dying on a cross. What’s unique about Jesus isn’t what he did but who he was at his very core. God made man. Good Friday makes sense only if we understand Jesus as God. No human being could do what Jesus did on Good Friday; I don’t mean die, nor die a painful death but the very fact that it reveals that God is willing to die to enter into death to defeat it like He did in the resurrection.

No other message is worth celebrating. Jesus’ humanity is only important if it is tangled up in his divinity. Jesus is the Son of God… go now and re read the gospel telling yourself that at each moment.

The Pope Is Dust Just Like You

As the evening approached I began to get more and more excited. I haven’t been as expectant and excited about a service since the Midnight Communion a few months ago. Ash Wednesday had arrived!

This day, more so than most other feast day, gets to the core of my theology and spirituality. A preacher and minister has to work very hard to fudge the the central message of this celebration and act of worship.

Remember you are but dust and to dust you shall return. Turn from sin and be faithful to Christ.

Ash Wednesday marks the start of the season of Lent, a period of 40 days (plus Sundays) dedicated to repentance and re-dedication to discipleship. This season is known for the tradition of giving up/fasting from certain luxuries or habits that distract us from the work of discipleship and our journey to holiness. The restraining from luxuries, in the modern day, has become seen as some self-inflicted punishment and has betrayed the true reason for participating in such activities: to re-dedicate your life and attention towards Christ, to clear our mind of striving after short-term pleasures and receive the eternal pleasure of knowing God.

But this post is not about fasting and Lenten disciplines.

I approached Ash Wednesday this year with Pope Benedict’s resignation very much on my mind. I, like many others, have been struck by the timing and the manner in which the pope’s statement was made. Through this short and concise proclamation of intent, the pope communicated one thing: humility.

True humility is about naming the truth of one’s status. It is a fine virtue to public live out just before the celebration of Ash Wednesday because humility has its roots in humus (of the earth). The pope’s public declaration clearly spoke of his weakness, a self-awareness of his defects and mortality and limitedness in fulfilling the role to which God called him. In a world obsessed with promoting the strength and potential of humanity, this public resignation sings of our true nature: we are dust.

The pope’s conviction stands powerfully against the lie of this age which says humanity is the source of transformation in the world. We, as a race, need no one else to be great. If we could harness some metaphysical goodness and our inner strength we can achieve all we want and imagine. There is no god but us; we are the source of our own destiny. In this environment it is no surprise that the pope’s resignation and the humility expressed in his statement confuses and baffles our culture.

And so it is with Ash Wednesday! We stand prophetically against the humanism of our society, which, in many forms (Christian as well as non-Christian), grips our philosophy. We reject the temptation to stand on our own and name ourselves ‘good’ and beautiful, worthy of praise and adoration. We deny the powerful narrative that suggests that, if we work hard and gather together we can muster up ‘love’ (whatever that means!) and build a bright future for ourselves. This is a lie!

As Christians we must start with the humility that the pope lived out in making the public statement: we are limited, we are mortal, we are dust.

But the Christian story doesn’t end there, in the fatalistic nihilism that this truth can lead us to. The Christian message is that we are dust (and not God) but, by the grace of God alone, we are able to become living beings. We are not born as living beings, as things worthy of attention and praise. We are born as dust.

Prior to the pope’s announcement our attention was captured with the debate over equality. At the heart of this conversation was the bill of Human Rights which I spoke about in ‘The Hunch, the Compulsion and the Overwhelming Pain’. It begins with the statement: ‘All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights…’ On Ash Wednesday and through Lent we, as Christians, proclaim a different truth which sounds seductively similar but distinctive: ‘All human beings are born dust and equally in need of God.’

We are equal in the sense we are equally dust, limited, mortal, nothing but we can receive the grace of God if we turn to Him and receive His gift. We cannot deny the giver and receive the gift, allowing its power to transform and change to manifest itself in our lives.

The pope shouted above this view that we, human beings, are the source of significant and lasting transformation of the world, a different view. The Catholic Church doesn’t need Pope Benedict to be the Body of Christ. The Catholic Church, as it has done through out history, needs God, the sole source of transformation and change.

Ash Wednesday begins a narrative in the Church’s calendar that journey’s through Good Friday into Easter and won’t end until Pentecost. There, in the upper room with the first disciples we become aware of our dust-ness but then the Spirit of God moves and causes our lifeless bodies to sing of life, not just existence, but eternal life. The Spirit of God, like a breeze, blows through that room and causes those heaps of dust dance, refracting the light that shines from Christ, the risen Lord.

There’s two failures we as Christians can make: inadvertently deny our dependence on God by promoting humanity as essentially ‘good’ and able to change the world, the other is to deny the power of God to use us, limited and mortal as we are, to show Himself as the sole source of eternal transformation. We so often speak too much of God’s love for us and fail to speak against the notion that we are worthy of that love. We can react to this by pushing too much the sin and darkness of humanity and fail to acknowledge that God has chosen to use our frail bodies.

The pope, in humility, made a bold statement against the humanism of popular culture and proclaimed our absolute dependence on God’s free, unmerited grace on us, unworthy as we are. He proclaims God is good and His love endures forever. We remain powerless until God’s power manifests itself through us. We must clear our lives of our own striving to hold power and receive afresh the gift of God’s presence that transforms us into something.

We are nothing made something by God’s everything.

We are dust caught in the wind of God’s Spirit, dancing in His Light.