Another favourite prayer

A Covenant with God
I am no longer my own but yours.
Put me to what you will,
rank me with whom you will;
put me to doing,
put me to suffering;
let me be employed for you,
or laid aside for you,
exalted for you,
or brought low for you;
let me be full,
let me be empty,
let me have all things,
let me have nothing:
I freely and wholehartedly yield all things
to your pleasure and disposal.
And now, glorious and blessed God,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
you are mine and I am yours.
                                            Methodist Covenant prayer.

A prayer

Disturb us, Lord,
when we are too well pleased with ourselves;
when our dreams have come true because we dreamed too little;
when we arrive safely because we sailed too close to the shore.

Disturb us, Lord, when with the abundance of things we possess
we have lost our thirst for the Waters of Life;
having fallen in love with life, we have ceased to dream of eternity;
and in our efforts to build a new earth,
we have allowed our vision of the new heaven to dim.

Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly -
to venture on wider seas where storms will show your mastery;
where losing sight of land, we shall find the stars.
We ask you push back the horizons of our hopes,
and to push us in the future with strength, courage, hope and love.

Francis Drake Circa 1590

Jesus as hermeneutical key

I am fascinated by Derrida and stuff about signs and referents. I am in the process of writing about  the Eucharist and would love to spend time on the gap being closed by the Word present to us in the eucharist so that gaps between sign and referent close and this is part of the mystery.

One of scripture's most fascinating pericopes for me is the road to Emmaus where we have the risen Christ interpreting the events that were all about him so that he becomes in himself a hermeneutical key, but more than that, the Word interpreting the word which is himself.

I probably need to spend a lot more time on this stuff and I know that it throws me back into the territory of my last degree where Loughborough's English department took a very postmodern approach to its subject. Will I have more time  to read in parish, possibly not but I might get more choice over what I read, having not even had time to read 'Is there a text in this class?' which I have been meaning to read for years.

Anyway, in the meantime, I continue to want to dig deeper into the anointing for what it can teach me about meaning and interpretation and Christ himself.

Christ's anointing in the gospel of Matthew

It is interesting that this pericope explores opposition between Jesus and his very disciples who differ in their interpretations of the woman's act.

Perhaps the woman is not fully cognisant of the symbolism of her act. It could be that she is conveying the high honour with which she esteems him. Psalm 23 describes how 'You prepare a table before me/ in the presence of my enemies;/ you anoint my head with oil;/ my cup overflows'. That the reader is to think about this psalm seems more obvious on inspection of the consequences of Jesus' rebuke. Her honouring of Jesus contrasts with the dishonour the disciples extend to the woman and moreover, to Jesus himself. The Psalm describes 'the presence' of 'enemies' being simultaneous with the anointing and with Judas likely one of the rebuked, Matthew (26:14) positions Judas' plan to betray Jesus to the priests (whom the reader encountered in the scene before the anointing), as occurring immediately after the anointing, so that treachery brackets the episode on both sides, making the woman's candour all the more audacious in comparison to their clandestine conspiracies.

Jesus as Messiah
Hooker dismisses commentators' suppositions that because 'Jesus' body was not anointed [and] caused his friends and disciples distress [they] came to interpret this incident as rectifying the omission.'1 The anointing functions to do much more than this. With messiah connoting 'anointed one', there is a symbolic significance that would have been intentional and understood by early readers. Platt invests the woman's action with significant symbolism, declaring,

For us, it says unequivocally that woman (and it is especially notable that she is not named and not given individuality, but is indeed Woman standing in the prophetic office for Israel) anointed Jesus as the Messiah of the House of David.2

Matthew would trust that early Jewish readers would read the woman's act as an allusion to Jesus' messiahship. Hers is a metaphorical consecration of him as King. In the Old Testament we have the king who is 'the LORD'S anointed' (1 Sam. 24:10; 2 Sam. 19:21; 23:1; Lam. 4:20) but also the 'anointed priest' (Lev.4:3; 6:22), and a prophet whom 'you shall anoint' (1 Kings 19:16). Matthew presents Jesus as the eschatological fulfilment of all these offices.

Jesus' death
It is Jesus, however, who provides us with the hermeneutical key for any interpretation of her act. Her act is to be interpreted in terms of what it is saying about his future work, his death. Whilst she might function as a symbolic conveyor of Jesus' Christological status, France describes how 'Probably without realising it, she had provided a pointer to the theology of the cross.'3 His death will fulfil the Old Testament prophesies to which Jesus has alluded (Isaiah 53, for example). Jesus is anointed before he eats, as was the Jewish custom for esteemed guests, but more significantly, he is anointed before his burial, because executed like a criminal, he would be denied anointing after death. To communicate this, Matthew omits the other gospel writers' descriptions of the women attending the tomb for the purpose of anointing his corpse (Mk 16:1; Jn 19:39).

Significantly, the woman, in this pericope, communicates by prophetic action, what the disciples are still failing to comprehend, despite Jesus' words, that he must suffer and die in order to rise again and reign in glory. Her actions signify that 'Jesus is the messianic King whose throne is a cross'.4 The scene exhibits a kind of dramatic irony because the readers of the gospel are aware of the significance of her actions, but the disciples are not.

Hermeneutics

Differences of interpretation are an event of the pericope itself. 'Jesus' speech covers half the pericope',5 and where the disciples respond, dissension is found. The reader confronts how contentious issues of interpretation can be. The significance of the act for post-Easter Christians is lost on the disciples who object with righteous indignation because the ointment could have been sold to generate income for the poor. In turn, they cause Jesus to become indignant as he rebukes them for 'bothering' or 'troubling' her (v. 10; the Greek idiom also at Luke 11:7; Gal 6:17, is a strong one). However, by its extravagance, her act challenges the reader too. Matthew describes Mark's 'nard' as ‘very costly ointment’ (v.7). πολύτιμος (very costly) is the same word Matthew uses to describe the pearl in 13:46. Its cost reinforces further the sacrificial nature of the woman's act; its magnitude. Just as the merchant would have sold all he had for the pearl, this woman is described as having given 'all' that she could. This takes us in turn back to Matthew's description of Jesus having given 'all' his teachings and prompts us forward to his final action, his giving all for us in his sacrifice on the cross, in which all his teachings find their fulfilment. Is Jesus, in turn, asking us whether we are offering so costly a sacrifice of praise and if not, then why not?

The disciples are puzzled by it but perhaps have more reason than us, not yet living in the light of the cross and resurrection. What Jesus decides is a good work or beautiful thing, they conclude to be a ἀπώλεια, the same word Matthew uses for 'perdition' (7:13), perhaps communicating the irony, that in her anointing of the only one who can forgive sins, this supposed 'waste' is actually her way of marking her gratitude for her forgiven state. She communicates something about our state in Christ too and what it cost. Like us, she no longer has cause to fear perdition. If she is consciously signifying her recognition of his messiahship, she acts as a foil to the disciples, who having spent so much time with Jesus, still fail to recognise his true status. It could be that Matthew wants the reader to wrestle with his/her own estimation of Jesus as well.

Conclusion

Only known as γυνή (woman) because Jesus insists she is remembered for her action, our worship of Jesus must reconcile, that whilst differences of interpretation about who Jesus is will manifest themselves in the ways that we worship and even in our very denominational differences, worship of Jesus requires us to acknowledge him as a crucified and risen King, Prophet and Priest. He is the fulfilment of all our hopes, to whom we give our very essence, our very all, so that if we are really leading a cruciform life, we will seek to love as Christ loved and he 'loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God' (Eph. 5:2). It is in this that our identity lies.

1Hooker, Gospel According to St. Mark, 330


2Platt, 'The Ministry of Mary of Bethany', 30


3France, The Gospel of Matthew, p.974


4Davies & Allison, Matthew, p.448


5Davies & Allison, Matthew, p.441

I like this...

by Fether.net

Perspective

Picture by Adrian Worsfold

I spoke about God being our 'abba-Father' this morning, but I rather like this hymn from a friend's site, in which God is very much the mother of her children too.

Praise to God the world's Creator,
Source of Life and growth and breath,
Cradling in her arms her children,
Holding them from birth to death.
In our bodies, in our living,
Strength and truth and all we do,
God is present, working with us,
Making us creators too.

Praise to God, our saving Wisdom,
Meeting us with love and grace,
Helping us to grow in wholeness,
Giving freedom, love and space.
In our hurting, in our risking,
In the thoughts we dare not name,
God is present, growing with us,
Healing us from pride and shame.

Praise to God, the Spirit in us,
Prompting hidden depths of prayer,
Firing us to long for justice,
Reaching out with tender care.
In our searching, in our loving,
In our struggles to be free,
God is present, living in us,
Pointing us to what shall be.

I led and preached in Derby in the absence of my holidaying vicars. A one-woman band, so-to-speak (with a real band assembled behind me with a couple of electric guitars that transported me back to a certain port in NY.)

Something felt different - thank the Lord! I felt 'at home.' Phew! My previous preaches have had me sweat, lose sleep and swing around emotionally. My previous preaches...emm...that would be the six other ones so far in my life.

I spoke. I was more myself.

I stressed the 'us' at the absolution and the 'us' at the blessing and I am wondering whether I will really have to say 'you' one day at these points in a service, when I really hope to include myself and more obviously capture the reality that it is God who absolves and blesses, not me.

I enjoyed myself, I worshipped, I sang and I also prayed during the intercessions rather than thinking about what I had to do next.  I sensed a listening and a welcoming people, not a people disappointed by the absence of the real-deal vicars for the trainee instead. People were so encouraging.

I had meaningful conversations over coffee afterwards and I thought...'Wow... I think I am really going to enjoy this vocation, this role, this life doing this thing in this capacity...'

I had prayed the night before for calm and peace, for children on the way to church (so early) who would really be okay about the whole thing... and they were. We listened to a Jazz CD driving from Nottingham to Derby which I had bought from a man playing an electric guitar at the ferry port to Staten Island, NY. Hermione sang, 'Go vicar!' as the guitar climbed up the scales, making us all laugh. Franny took her place at the front of the church before everyone else arrived and pretended to give out all the notices with her 'Blah-blah, blah, ble ble ble.... amen and now the children leave for their groups, Amen, amen again' routine. With no Eucharist today, they returned home to administer apple juice in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and you would be forgiven for thinking that this all sounds rather twee and overly cute but this is the way that it was today - quite lovely really.

... and my mum thinks I might not have much time for the girls but I trust it will all be alright, that they will grow up in a different kind of family where daddy does perhaps more cooking than mummy and probably more school runs... but I figure, really, this is all going to be okay.

...so there are two weeks to go until this new thing begins and the decorators have made the walls of the new house, the cleanest walls I will ever have lived within. It is humbling that members of the congregation where I will serve cleaned parts of this new home for me and my family. It is quite overwhelming that this diocese will continue to support my development, feeding me with theology and training, supporting my hopes to continue to read and apply myself academically and it feels like such a privilege to be embarking on this disciple-making, journey-taking, friend-making, singing, thanking, praying, celebrating way of life. Of course, it will also be marked by my entry into the ragged places too where there are few really consoling answers but struggling ones, where some kind of sense will attempt to be made of things that will defy sense-making. But I welcome it now. I say ... let it begin ... perhaps 'ready' is too overly presumptuous a word but it is just the word I have for today... today I feel 'ready'...

For God's glory

Read more here 

Church attendance has doubled at the church of Rev'd Stephanie, who is described as 'blonde' and 'pretty.' She is also a Cambridge theology graduate and has exchanged a high-powered job for the calling to ordained ministry.

If we have a secure theology of our wholeness, of the incarnation and a healthy body-theology, there should be no reason to think anything apart from people's attraction to someone vibrant and fresh-looking who has the message of the gospel to impart. I wonder what this kind of media attention says about the preconceived images that are at large about your typical cleric or even your typical Christian, at that.

Our recent horizons have been dominated by images of Christians, on the latest Louis Theroux program, who were full of hatred and took to the streets with their homophobic campaigns. We have also been treated to the apocalyptic predictions of one Harold Camping, who has now revised Armageddon for October 31st.

What we desperately need is more coverage of a church that is approachable and relevant, a church where the 'girl next door' might be just as easily be also that very vicar in the pulpit the next time you choose to attend church.

Update 26/5/11

What do you think Steph's image does for Christianity? Is it an issue? Why the attention on the looks of this woman? Would similar articles be written about an attractive young man?
There has been mixed reaction to this post in terms of my linking to the Daily Mail and in terms of this paper's coverage of the story.
What kind of response does this article invoke in you and for what reasons?

Swapping the smile for more grace

We have just shared thoughts with David Runcorn on our public role and personal pilgrimage and something he spoke about really resonated with me. He talked about how falling back on your smile, your charms, your human resources can be very life-draining. This is not really about operating out of grace. It is more about ego. He amused us with the idea of a person going to bed and relaxing their face for the first time in preparation for sleep, conscious of aching jaws from smiling all day long. I remember those aching jaws from my teaching days.

l guess with those with whom we can be really real, our faces do not ache, nor do our bodies, we hold a steady posture, in that it is not contorted, not eager or strained. David talked about how our bodies, when they are touched, ooze our stories and flow with our wounds and our joys.

l am quite a reader of body language, sometimes to an over-sensitive extent and I read my own body language too, taking care not to cross legs folded in a direction away from the person I am sitting next to or cross my arms in front of me when I am being spoken to, if l do these things l become quickly conscious that l am on my guard.

l am also aware of times when I rely on something less than grace in my unsure moments. l have been nurtured in a household that has always been big on manners, sometimes to an alarming extent, think Basil Fawlty and his terrible British apology, almost for his very existence. If it has not quite been that, 'pleases' and 'thank yous' come easily to me but I am wondering, if at times, they are escaping my mouth by rote and are a learned pattern of behaviour and one that I am now conscious l ha ve become unconscious about.

On my way through the check-in at JFK, l was last in my party's crowd as we presented documentation of our address to the final check-in clerk. Eager not to be separated from my group, l relied on my British accent, big smile and confident 'thank you' to hurry the process along, or at least I realise this with hindsight. I really did not give the man a chance to read my address from the card at all. I was severely reprimanded.

'Don't you say that to me, young lady, you get right back here and do not walk away until I dismiss you.'
'What?- thank you, but I only said thank you.'
'Yes and don't you ever say that again until I say that you can go and what's in your bag?'

l was then interrogated on its contents, told never to do what I had done again and dismissed. l had not blushed so violently since l went through a strange hormone related blushing thing when pregnant about nine years ago. l literally felt like my face went purple as l instructed my brain to tell my voice to speak calmly and slowly and act on this man's instructions and satisfy his curiousity about my personal possessions.

l was holding up the queue who were all staring at me and l was becoming separated from the party ahead, as l rejoined this group of people whom l did not know yet, l continued to instruct my brain to keep my voice steady and my eyes to hold all possible liquid within for a while.

As l unpacked the incident, l came to understand that l was being humbled for an ego and disposition that had assumed all would go well with me, a pleasant, polite young lady with a winsome smile and cute British accent. None of this had got me the results that I had anticipated. I had resulted to ego where l should have remembered grace. Grace would have had me give this man more time, grace would have had me look him in the eye rather than breeze past, grace would have perhaps delivered conversation about my whereabouts rather than process. There might have been expectancy rather than ungrateful expectation on my part. There might have been none of these things but grace might have spared me my blushes and him my arrogance.

The last place I expected to learn keen lessons in the first leg of the Indaba process was at the airport but that one continues to stay with me. l was then introduced to more profound examples of humility and grace which nevertheless led me to ruminate still on this God who will convict us gently and sometimes with violent blushes in the simplest of everyday encounters with the very many people that he has crafted in his image.

Transparency

A shard of another Adrian Worsfold caricature

I hope to have an integrated life and sometimes wonder if I am naive or optimistic or just hopefully faithful.

I am married to a man in internet security who is savvy when it comes to the net and conscious about issues of privacy and security. We could not be further apart in terms of the worlds we inhabit. He has just joined facebook, anathema to him for a long time.

He wonders how I know the people I know and I have to explain to him that I inhabit multiple realms and no, I am not referring to the Pauline heavenly and earthly but to the earthly and virtual. I speak to virtual friends and real friends, sharing table and desk, listening (to lectures, sermons etc), I write. I have just bought my first tablet and conversations can now be typed more easily where ever I go.

I am beginning also to consider some of the boundaries that are necessary and some that are to be thought through. This blog has always sought to be investigative and to think out loud but I am conscious that words carry weight and responsibility.

I want to demonstrate an integrity of life in all aspects of my existence and the realm of facebook is just another place where I converse. I know that I am caricatured by one other religion and belief blogger but I have become rather used to this, I am hoping that people know that this is not an accurate reflection.

The Ryan Giggs case has highlighted again the blurry edges between the private and the public.People in positions of influence are in some ways public property. On the other hand, they are people to be respected in terms of their private lives.

We can not escape comment. We can not escape being misquoted. Even in my writing a two hundred word description about myself for the local newspaper, with the editor returning to me the write-up before printing, I found I was saying things in quotation marks I have never said and I needed to correct simple issues of mistaken geography.

So to whom do we belong?

As ministers, we belong to the people and this will always involve the kind of vulnerability that I have been living out here in cyberspace for a number of years. Safer here probably where I can delete comments and disallow comments from certain posts if I do not want to engage in conversation.

Ultimately though, we belong to Christ and I am hoping that shaped by his example, we learn to bear witness to him in all forums virtual and real, this I will continue to do and inevitably I will make mistakes but it is in being prepared to be conformed to his likeness, that I seek the only protection I will ever need in the face of the misquotes, mistakes and my misbehaving caricature.

The blog will stay, the friendship requests will not be denied. ... so far, so good, I have little reason to be cynical.

Times Square and the Empire State building and 'ecclesiastical polity'

Continuing Indaba Encounter Social network and Blog Policy:

These thoughts are my thoughts alone and do not represent my diocesan team or the Indaba project.  

A really varied day yesterday. The Bronx zoo in the morning. It is amazing how the walking and talking works. You know, if you find you might have said something a bit off or unusual, there are plenty of diversions to distract and then move on. The gorillas there put on a glass-thumping display.

We headed there because the zoo was in the Bronx from where we could visit a school program running from a church. The priest-in-charge was a real inspiration and talked us through the prophetic significance of one of the pieces of stained glass before describing her church's foci - big on social justice issues, particularly where it came to the care of children.

After this we visited a theologically conservative, politically and socially liberal parish with a dynamic and foreward thinking priest. I hope to tell you more about his vision and have talked with him and sought his permission for sharing his thougts here and a facebook friendship is beginning. I have wanted to explore how to communicate Christ's hospitality and inclusivity with an attentive reading of the Bible as God's Word and truth. He articulated what I have been searching to articulate.

One idea from scripture keeps recurring for me during this process- "look intently" and even though this process is about speaking and is the extension of a theology about listening (although we are listening for various emphases), there is a metaphorical and real intentional looking which is causing me to reassess some of my thinking. It's with slight trepidation that I consider how profound an effect this might have on me theologically and I am no way near able to process all my thinking. ...it is also so messy, I am waffling privately elsewhere which will spare you the contradictions and unreconciled half-thoughts.

Meanwhile stuff moves on. I am caught up in this for the while but the issues on the ground make for interesting reading. It would seem that some are 'disappointed' about what we are involved in.

Re some of the issues, impact on mission might be keenly felt in some places and less so in others. I need to catch up on the blogosphere and Thinking Anglicans. My ears are more alert and my eyes are more intently looking but my legs are also killing me, three years on your bottom reading about it, does not prepare you physically for walking it out - I feel as though I have treked across half of New York and of course, all of that is done in heels so it's hard on the knees whilst sparing those underused muscles that would suffer if I pounded the 'sidewalks' in flat 'sneakers'.

I know I am going to return exhausted and I am hoping I can hold some of this whilst I squeeze out two more college assignments before July 3rd is upon me and I begin to put more of this stuff into practice. I am learning a lot about mission. I am also learning that there are many different interpretations of that very word!

Today Ground Zero, Trade Centre or 9/11 - interestingly, it would seem that there are different resonances for the way in which it is referenced.

I wonder how it will feel after the death of Osama.

Ach! I need the patience of a Saint!

I just used this phrase half an hour ago in putting my children to bed. I told them that this is what it takes to get them to co-operate with the bed-time routine.

Paul states that we really are 'saints' and we are that before we are 'faithful', Paul says God 'picked us out' (eklegomai), conferring this status upon us. It is not derived from our faith, which is 'in' Christ rather than 'to' Christ because this is about our position (given through grace) not our loyalty.

Which is great, we can all be disloyal.

Blessings are ours (Eph. 1.v.1) as people 'in Christ' and 'in the heavenly places' (v.3). 

We actually inhabit multiple realms, the physical realm and the heavenly realm where we live consecrated in Christ as citizens of his Kingdom. Paul is determined that we appropriate these spiritual blessings and put on a spiritual armour for the sake of our security as we battle. I wonder what battles we face on a daily basis, these will be different for each one of us and many are way more serious than screaming at your kids for the umpteenth time to 'go and clean your teeth!'

I reckon we have to live as if we really are Saints. If we do this, we will begin to change? We can have our attitude changed to situations in our life that are scary and difficult. 

Sometimes it is difficult to grasp God, nigh impossible. His ways are higher and he is Spirit but access to him and knowledge of his character has been revealed to us, his will is 'a mystery' that has been 'made known to us' (Eph 1.9). What was hidden has, through Christ, become manifest and we are privy to God's plan for the 'fullness of time', in which he will 'gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth' (Eph 1.10).

That is seriously powerful. We can know God, his character, his will, his plans. If we know Jesus, we can know God. We can read, listen, hear about Jesus, talk about him, blog about him, take his light into the world by behaving as he would have us behave... We can converse with him - kind-of. Try again, and again and again. At first it's like you are talking to yourself but then slowly over time this is no longer the case. Then you clean forget you ever thought you were only talking to yourself in the first place. It's prayer. Ask the Holy Spirit in.

We are in receipt of a wisdom which subjugates any claims to an exclusively held secret knowledge and the empty promises of other ideologies/faiths/world-views, to Christ himself, 'under [whose] feet' (Eph 1. v.22) such things are placed.

What God did in eternity past (our election) and the Son accomplished in the historical past (our redemption through the cross) is made real by the Spirit. The Spirit, given at our turning to him (and continually given) to us all, guarantees our perfect reunion with Christ in the future. God gives us his Holy Spirit now so that moments of peace and joy and energy and power are available now and are a foretaste of what life will be like in the future, in that future life promised to us, which we can only grasp by faith and have come to call Heaven.

Are we really grasping hold of our status, now?

Are we really living in the light of the risen Christ whom we have just spent time worshipping this Easter?

The truth of who we are needs to be thought through and carried deeply so that we might appropriate our Spiritual blessings and resist promises made by everything thing else that is offered to us in such tempting packages - alternative spiritualities, the illusory security of material prosperity, the quick-fix life-coaching therapies, the status that we receive from our jobs which can be here today and gone tomorrow.

The next time I despair, saying 'I need the patience of Saint,' perhaps I will think, 'I am one, so I might as well ask God for some.'

Cancelling and collecting

Times a changing

Photo by Rachel Marszalek Times Square, NY, May, 2011

...so with just 6 weeks to go I am cancelling and collecting.

I am cancelling rental agreements and changing student status to part-time (I still have the thesis to write for the Masters award). I am cancelling gas and electricity agreements and setting up new ones in the name of someone called Reverend Marszalek (whom she is I do not know yet). I am collecting clothes of a particular style from people who have made them for me and into which I have put much thought and I am settling bills, I am receiving copies of certificates I lost long ago about my baptism in 1977 and my confirmation in 1987. My husband is searching through the garage for a degree certificate and a PGCE certificate that enabled me to begin my first ever job in 1997 and I am reflecting on the significance of 2007 when my life took an unexpected turn (or possibly expected, when I look back at it) at an Alpha course.

1977
1987
1997
2007

You would be forgiven for thinking someone out there might have had a plan. 2017 sounds positively space age - I have no ideas what might happen next. I am conscious that thoughts about the recent past will have to stew for a while. Blog posts are not going to get written on all the things I experienced in the US. I have essays to write on the following:

Discuss the missional significance of the Eucharist, grounding your discussion in Eucharistic theology. Write a proposal for your PCC, outlining how the Eucharist's missional significance might best be realised liturgically in your church. 

An exegesis of Esther 6 or 2 Chron 26:16-23 or Neh 13:23-31 with a reflection showing how the exegesis leads into a sermon with an outline or summary of the sermon itself. 

This kind of work is different to anything we have done before and appears to be some last-ditched attempt to have us be more practical just before we leave. I have only one week of teaching left but having missed two teaching weeks for New York, my last two assignments could prove to be my weakest yet. High 2:1 grades have already become relegated to mid 2:1. There is more to think about now than in years one and two of training. I lead and preach next Sunday in my sending church with both its vicars on holiday, I am glad Ship of Fools already sent their mystery worshipper this year! I 'graduate' college with a farewell ceremony on the 11th June and then pack up house and home to move two days later,  deadlines having hopefully been met on the 10th. 

I then have two weeks of freedom before retreat and ordination and this will be the first fortnight period in three years where I have not had an essay or sermon to think about. I plan to potter and walk, discover and talk my way around my new geographical landscape. The children will be driven to the school they currently attend each day until the summer so that the educational year is not interrupted, they will start their new school in September. 

...so finally ... the next episode is looming. The blog will continue. I will not be setting up separate facebook pages but try to keep life as integrated as possible - this is important to me. Internal shifts have been taking place for a long time, my outer garb will just now express that sense of inner calling, that's all, I perhaps will adjust less than the people around me, particularly the ones I do not see often who will find me more strange in strange attire. It all feels okay and quite normal. it is neither scary nor comfortable just okay really and right. We'll see, there's still a good six weeks to go ... anything can happen!

ATMs, flower shops and onions, docking at new ports

These thoughts are my thoughts alone and do not represent my diocesan team or the Indaba project.

There are a few analogies that have become powerful for me over the last few days with which I am working out my thoughts about the Episcopal church.

Yesterday, I stood at an ATM. I put my card in and punched my number to withdraw $120. There were two slots as far as I could tell - one for a receipt and one for the money. I received my receipt, I seemed not to receive my money. I stood for a while in panic, thinking through my options. If I left the machine, there would be a good chance that I would abandon the transaction and any possible sight of the dollars, which would surely be claimed by someone else. I just stayed there and tried to work it out and probably no more than a couple of minutes later looked further down the machine, nearer to my knees and there was my money lying in a little old-fashioned letterbox like slot. Hey presto! Duh! Panic over.

This is relevant to my experiences here. I am doing all the 'right' things, the usual things I do to encounter God, come into his presence, enable him to reveal himself to me but just where I would expect to find him, I am not. I am having to stand in the panic for a while and work it out. He manifests himself differently here.

I have another analogy, which, every time, I think it through, does not actually work so happily in my favour. I want to buy flowers and instead of going directly to the flower shop, I go to the bread shop, the bakery and Starbucks instead and ask if they sell flowers. All of them have flowers that I can see and even touch and smell but I can not buy flowers at any of these places until I actually get to the flower shop. What I have to decide is whether going to the flower shop direct is the best thing, in some ways it is and in some ways it is not. I will meet more people at the shops along the way, chat with them and get to eat pastry, drink coffee and sample different types of salami. There is also a part of me though, that longs instead to be simply in the flower shop, spending the time that I might otherwise lose with all those flowers of beautiful varieties, which are all of course, actually flowers, the very thing I set out to encounter and be captured by.

My next thoughts were stimulated by a day with migrant farm-workers ministry who support those who dig the black soil for onions. I was told by a wonderful man named Stash - more about him in another post some time, that the soil contains onions - this is poor man's food, an entire meal consisting of bread and a big boiled onion. What was memorable (many things were, but another time!) was that 5 miles down there would be oil and if they were to dig 15 miles down, they would find diamonds. In the Episcopal church, I am not sure whom it is who should be doing the digging and I suspect it is probably me - I 'get' the onions - I really do see them. I see onions everywhere. These onions are feeding people, nourishing them and bringing people into church every day. There is however little burning oil, in terms of that fire that I have learnt to sniff the embers of in charismatic expressions of evangelical worship, that something that gently warmed the heart of Wesley and there are few diamonds in terms of the mining of scripture in community for the amazing, supernatural light that it can shed on a situation. However, I am also prepared very much to say that it could be that this is my problem. I can not find oil or diamonds here. I find a socially engaged, bright and colourful people with a heart for the social gospel, people's lives are being transformed, there is hospitality, invitation, dialogue, conversation, inclusion, generosity. I find so many aspects of Christ's revelation but I am still hungry. I need to keep going in search of oil and diamonds, I am sure I need to dig deeper.

What is alarming me and causing me to do some real wrestling with God is that I would come here and end up with the black of the soil under my nails and the stink of onions in my hair and somehow that is scary and perhaps more costly than the ministry I might become involved in in England whose welfare state system seems to give out onions too so that onions do not become so desperate a focus.

...and the last analogy that is proving puzzling and helpful is the idea of docking at different ports. I long to dock somewhere. I am looking for home. I am alien in many ways and this is very gospel, I guess. If I dock several places I will climb onto land and then return to the ship with booty from many destinations. I will also be left changed by my encounters with people and this is a bit concerning to me right now, just as I am approaching ordination, having journeyed a little and even having dared to have already made my mind up on some things. Now I am in flux again or perhaps I am even more fixed (?). I keep imagining the certainty of praising God in college worship, holding up my arms in adoration, it all feeling a little more simple. A trip to Staten island here will have me orientated always to the Statue of Liberty, it is the focus of the landscape, being framed by millions of cameras. The green is pulling me in with the victory it is declaring over oppression, what I want to see is that which it points to more clearly but I am blocked by the sunlight behind it and need to wear shades. The spectrum here is very colourful when it is broken down. It is almost blinding, I have this need to rest in the shade for a while and think about this God who manifests himself in ways that are so obvious and yet on another level so hidden.

I wonder what my analogies might reveal to you, do help me work things through :-)

Mike Bird flies to new nest

Just to announce to readers of Revisingreform. I have had this in from:

Michael Bird

Dear Rachel,

I hope this finds you well. I've recently moved my blog Euangelion from Blogspot to Patheos. I was hoping you could drop a note on your blog advertizing the move so mutual readers don't get "Left Behind". Please update your blogrolls accordingly, thank you.

Patheos.com

Church of the Holy Apostles

Talked to Phil Groves who is happy with me blogging through Indaba for the most part. This morning we went to the Church of the Holy Apostles and a feeding program/soup kitchen staffed by 200 volunteers, 50 - 70 on hand a day. This church was established in 1847 and the soup kitchen was born in 1982. This is a fully inclusive church with a ministry to gay, lesbian and transgender people. It is staffed by volunteers from across faiths. I ate with hundreds of guests who had queued up for food, served so efficiently on plastic trays. This compared to your average British motorway service station but the food and the scenery was better.

I spoke with a woman who had walked a few blocks and worked selling newspapers. She shared with me her story about the stressful pace of New York life, the living in fear of illness in a state that does not provide medical care. I spoke to her about the NHS.

We wondered if the lack of care offered centrally accounted for the culture of volunteerism that is so alive and kicking in NY, in comparison to the UK.

I spoke to a Parisian volunteer with a beautiful accent who shared with me that this was her calling on becoming retired.

Church of the Holy Apostles is famous in NY for its social justice progam and its inclusivity.

On the way out a guy in the queue asked for prayer and Tom, one of the priests we are with, put a hand on this man's head to pray for him. It was one of those snap-shots I will store in my brain.

Where ever we go, people speak with us, we are perhaps a bit of a spectacle purple shirts and dog-collars are quite easy to spot. We have been taking group photos and trying to speak with people on the subway. The weather has been beautiful and so we have been walking for the most part.

I am drinking iced latte in Starbucks at the moment (2:30pm/5:30 UK) and waiting to go and have dinner at St John of the Divine. We will have a service there tonight.

We walked the high line on the way here and saw the Statue of Liberty in the background and the Empire State building before that. It all feels rather awesome, from the sound of the traffic to the conversations I am engaged in. I have had some interesting walks and talks about Issues in Human Sexuality with a delegate from the Indian team and we have been comparing the church cultures that we understand.

I love the buzz of New York - so many interesting people, so many iconic things to see. Okay, I'll blog again. Bye for now.

Biblioblogs and Boom boom shake the room

...lyrics have little to do with the post - "Walk the dinosaur" just popped into my head for no reason, other than perhaps it is a little related. This song mixes some quite profound lyrics with some downright  strangely simple ones:

Contrast this:
I met you in a cave you were painting Buffalo 
I said I'd be your slave follow wherever you go. 
That night we split a rattlesnake and danced beneath the stars  
You fell asleep I stayed awake and watched the passing cars.


with this:

I walked a dinosaur I walked a dinosaur! 
Open the door get on the floor everybody walk the dinosaur. 
Open the door get on the floor everybody walk the dinosaur. 
Open the door get on the floor everybody walk the dinosaur. 
Open the door get on the floor everybody walk the dinosaur.

The point I want to make about biblioblogs is that it is easy to feel as though your more straight-forward and everyday reflections count for little alongside blog-posts on Hebrew pointing, the nuances of the original Aramaic or the relationship between conquest pericopes and global politics... but this is just it, they do!

The Biblical Studies Carnival which collates the best posts from the biblioblogs on a monthly basis contains all sorts of wacky and non-bible related topics. 

But, on the other hand at biblioblogs you can also find there the latest news on discoveries whether they prove to be real or not, like the lead codices, and read the thoughts that will eventually become mashed into the latest books on biblical-related issues. If you want to see what sorts of things are coming through, join the twitter stream publicising the latest contributions here. 

If you are working your way through theological college, you have something to contribute every time you are working your way through an essay and you'll probably find lots of stimulating conversation to engage in about your topic. 

If you have interest in the bible and are just down-right puzzled by parts of it, this could be a resource for you. 

I have joined the author team over at Biblioblogs and hope to increase the number of British contributors. But the biggest call is to increase the number of women who blog on the Bible. If I can make the top 50, you can. I have only been blogging three years, the same number of years I have had puzzles about faith and the Bible to work through. I am not an academic theologian. 

You need to log your blog with Alexa which gives you exposure and tracks your hits. 

You need to let me know here that you are blogging. There will be a new feature at the top where I can store links to women's faith and bible blogs and then we can send recommendations over to Biblioblogs. 

Seminaries and theological colleges are chock-full of male lecturers, lovely as they are, bible-related scholarship is also under-represented on the female-front. We might begin by increasing women's contributions to this growing forum - please let me know what you think and where you are blogging. It's time to 'open up the floor' .... I'm saying nothing about dinosaurs.

Lesley's Blog: UK Top Female Christian Bloggers

Lesley's Blog: UK Top Female Christian Bloggers – Wikio for May
Thanks for keeping a record of these things, Lesley, as with Biblioblogs Top 50, it is important that women continue to contribute to online faith and life issues in as many ways as possible, particularly when it comes to growing the Kingdom of God on the web. It is as important here that we are encouraging women's voices as it is in our churches and the world. On a day like today, when many of us stood in booths casting votes that just over a century ago we would not have had an option to cast, we should continue indeed to say as both Lesley and I have said this week at the bottom of posts - Go girls!

Holy Communion for all

Do you think that we ought to have open communion in our churches? (Invite the unbaptised.)

James Farwell and Kathryn Tanner argue about whether we should or not. Farwell is brave, he knows the position that he maintains needs defending.

Is restricting this meal to the baptised a fair reflection of Jesus' open table fellowship?

Does the meal seek to do more than this so that the above line of defence is a weak argument for open-table fellowship?

Farwell asks whether we might consider the two sacraments in relationship with one another: the eucharistic meal is the foundation for the further table-fellowship baptised followers of Jesus are empowered to go into the world and involve themselves in as they minister to people created in God's image and discover with others more about life and God.

In this way then those partaking in the meal are those who share Jesus' vision and understand the commissioning it communicates and their own participation in his life as they fulfil that commission.

Farwell points our attention to Augustine could this, reductio ad absurdum, mean we are symbolically consuming ourselves. (I wonder how that might sit alongside something like transubstantiation - it's all beginning to get rather messy, isn't it? Charges of cannibalism (h/t in class to Ben Griffiths!) were levied at the early church by those who didn't, wouldn't or couldn't enter into the meaning of the meal.)

Farwell also asks that we be conscious of the changes that might have to be made to baptism, if open table fellowship is practised. He supports the idea that the Eucharist nourishes what has been assented to, received and birthed at baptism.

In some ways, I can relate to this. We feed what is alive not what is dead. Or continuing on this vein more accurately, do we feed what is not yet born in order to bring it to life? Having said that, this is not an active feeding of any yet-to-be born baby, it just happens as part of the life in which that child has been received and is growing. The unbaptised are nourished through the Word and worship in the church, do we wait until the birth of their faith-life as it is symbolised through baptism before we mark the nourishment of that life with the giving of the Eucharist? I only have questions at this point.

Farwell ties the Eucharist so closely to baptism that he makes a very persuasive case for preserving the meal to the baptised. This metanoia, turning to God, at baptism, is in itself remembered through the Eucharist too in so much as we are called to recall the life that we were called into at baptism (I know there's a lot of 'calling' going on in that sentence), a life in Christ, discipled - 'the table presumes the content of baptism.'

This thinking leads him to believe -

If we separate baptism from the Eucharist and do not require it, the real turning to Christ is foregone, argues Farwell. He does not reference the confession and absolution which precedes the Eucharist. He believes that we minimise the free gift of God that is also a call upon the whole of our lives and beings.

Is the sharing in his suffering prominent enough in a defence of open table fellowship based on gift and hospitality? If we invite people to come and partake of Christ's suffering, does that not need the former rite of baptism to ground that and make sense of it somehow? (Theologically, of course, language here of invitation which culminates in ideas of guest and host is problematic when Christ's is the invitation, he is the host and the host and we are all guests but more than that still, because we are participators).

Tomorrow I will think about reasons FOR open table Eucharist. Do share your thoughts. I would benefit, as might many others.

Sometimes I just write poems...

...not sure where they come from
but sometimes they just do...


I think this one is a tad self-indulgent. It reminds me of that man in the comedy sketch who would begin a beautiful landscape and then accidentally use black paint and run off screaming into the wind at what he had done.

I think that this one is perhaps about community life...but it could be about many things.



Called, collected together, cemented
Voice-strong, lament long-lamented
Higher than highest pitch
Lower than the deepest deep
Hiding fearfully, behind hands - peep!
Daring exposure in a search for 
closure
A vivid, vivacious, holy disclosure: Who am I, Lord?


Struggling silently surrounded
Freedom felt keenly but socially bounded. 
Who am I Lord?


When do I get to be untied?
Alive without bits of me having died?
Am I part of a corporate struggle - then if so, show me the struggling
                                                                                                    the sliding
                                                                                                         the hidden


Is mine to be a hiding place that's so very forbidden?


Dare to bare skin in a world that says 'cover-all', whilst revealing so much other stuff that's shiny and perfect and causes the soul to blush
but is deep down deluded but so comfortable in threaded fluff.


My REAL is sore and delicate and fracturing. 
It's attempting to find skin with which it might find a matching.
There's a life beneath, pushing through and painfully hatching, 
But the dry bits are bleeding and on surfaces catching. 


So whom should I rub against where there is no friction?
And in whom do I make a home that won't become an addiction?
For I don't want to run there escaping these sea-scapes, 
I must stay in the waves awhile and wait 'til the dawn breaks. 
I must keep afloat now, a little while longer, 
Not falling asleep as the waves become stronger. 


Bring me into shore, Lord, I need a resting-place. 
Patch up my wounds, Lord, and clean up my sun-burnt face. 
Place me on solid ground, hoist me up in a panopticon
From where on all sides I'll gaze out on your smiling Son. 
Lower me down again and refresh me with real sight, 
Have me pitch a new tent in the rays of your ember light.

Easter celebrated at All Saints Church, Almancil, Algarve

This year we celebrated Easter with ASCA. This church is GAFCON affiliated. I remember early days of blogging on this site as the Gafcon/Lambeth split was occurring.

I was really pleased to have written an essay, prior to my visit to this church, on the Anglican Covenant because after exploring reaction to it, my understanding of the Gafcon split is now a little more informed. I am not giving away too much about my views, only that I have more ponderings and less reactions these days to difficulties in our communion. I am more interested and even less interested. There is too much other stuff to be getting on with. I am more interested in discovering the people behind, or rather, in front of, the issues.

A few years ago, I would have visited this church with lots of presuppositions, reading Atherstone and Goddard and several other diverse critics of the Covenant, I have come to realise that everybody has an opinion of some kind or another and many of those opinions do not tie neatly into some kind of confessional package where one point of 'orthodoxy' fits with the next. There is such variety and divergence in us all, really, that we all need one another and we live through the ups and downs of a Communion that seems to make friends and break friends as many times as do children in a playground.

If you google ASCA, you get a lot of Anglican Mainstream material. Some of this I have tried to read through, some of it requires background knowledge of the situation evolving in the earlier days of the ministry of this church.

...So we met in the Almancil Community Centre, distinctive with its pink and blue paint and were ushered in and greeted by both the priest in charge and people who would sing later in the choir, Dora and Colin, who sat in front.

I wonder if I was rather expecting modern worship music, guitars and prayer ministry, influenced by reading Atherstone's descriptions of that 'lively and vibrant Christianity.' It was very much more high-church than i had anticipated, very liturgical. Three people conducted the service with Father Joe, whose last service it would be before returning to America, preaching. There was lots of genuflecting and traditional hymns to a small electronic keyboard. The choir sang quite beautifully and were quite a spectacle in their turquoise shawls.

Father Joe, a rotund and charming American with a story to tell about a missing forefinger which we never heard, preached a lively sermon about how Easter, if it should be about anything, should really be about forgiveness. He illustrated the weight of hurt that we can carry around with us with a suitcase which he dramatically threw against a wall to express how Jesus releases us from this weight if we can learn to forgive. He also talked about toxic people and how we need to be strong and not doormats; we can wish people well but not have to live with them if they bring us down all the time. It was a very real and brave preach. He asked the congregation lots of tough questions about being hurt, whether they had been divorced etc. When the congregation responded, he told each person he loved them in the way that only Americans can with their wonderful accents.

There was a baptism and they forgot to present the candle and called us all back as we were leaving for this bit. There was a real sense of relaxation despite the liturgical rigidity, as if, 'really, when push comes to shove, if we're meant to leave bits out, we will just do that, it will all get sorted in the end.' There was a Kenyan blessing to finish the service where we threw our difficulties at the cross, symbolically, with a hand gesture, as if flinging something across a room. This was quite powerful.

The congregation were going on to Father Joseph Wingo's villa for his leaving-do to which we were invited, which was so kind, but we thought our children might be in need of a beach and somehow it felt a little strange to fling ourselves on the hospitality of this church family whom we would only be visiting just this once.

So that was ASCA. It's great to see the Anglican Church (even if it is struggling with its Anglican identity) worshipping with such variety. At times you felt you were in an Anglo-Catholic church, the preach felt quite non-conformist and the choir almost pentecostal in a choral sort of way, if that doesn't sound too weird. There was a huge variety of different peoples, Kenyan, Asian, South African, British, Canadian and American. There was an ordained woman on the leadership team and a range of activities usually available for children had it not been Easter.

All in all, we were very glad we struggled for fifty minutes to follow directions to this church which actually turned out to be only ten minutes down the road from our holiday villa (note to self - purchase suitable Sat nav app for mobile phone when abroad next time!)

Happy Anglican with ordinary handkerchief

I have just come back from a holidaying in a place with Sky TV. I have not watched TV for a few years. I know us vicar-types need to keep-up-to-date with what's going on and everything but the internet and the radio helps with that. I never meant to give up TV and it wasn't for pious reasons, I just got to the point a few years ago when I found myself channel-surfing more than actually watching anything, as I attempted to find something worth watching.

The children watch CBBC and so I now tend to forget that there are actually other options for our entertainment: our telly is set to default to CBBC.... So on holiday, I got to take a look at God-Channels and oh brother, did they make me glad to be Anglican.

These channels offered Spring Water, guaranteed to bring you miracles and the Bible Green Prosperity Handkerchief, which will supernaturally clear your debts.

When Peter Popoff, pops off, I rather wonder how he is going to explain his television campaign in the next life.

Now maybe Jayeeesus is not the Jesus of the Anglican Church, he certainly is hard to recognise. One of the worst lines that we heard from Peter Popoff, as we gave him a few minutes of our time, was that Jayeeesus came to give us life in abundance...but wait for it ...Peter tells us ...'how can Jayeessus expect us to do that without money.' Oh dear! I have a feeling that Jesus might have been saying that the abundant life has very little to do with material wealth!

I have looked at the Barth-Brunner debate over natural theology and point-of-contact. Barth speaks an emphatic 'Nein!' to the idea that humanity can come to know God through anything other than the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Brunner conceives a thesis for anthropology through which he can argue for a 'point of contact' whilst simultaneously preserving grace over nature. Personally, I think that both Barth and Brunner, for all their hair-splitting over Natural theology, would be united in their condemnation of Popoff's claim that Miracle Spring Water is "a point of contact, a Biblical tool ... something you can touch, something you can see."

My husband and I re-read Acts on holiday which left us in deep discussions about the power of testimony and how we hope to incorporate testimony in any services we lead.

In Acts 19:11-12 Paul sent handkerchiefs and aprons to the sick and the suffering but they weren't green and they weren't prosperity handkerchiefs.

With Popoff, items are sent for free but with all sorts of prophecies attached describing the amount of money that should be donated to Popoff for the release of the divine favour - this is seriously scary stuff!

...anyway, that was my flirtation with Sky TV and the religious channels. I think the only channels that might have something decent and trustworthy to say were UCB and Revelation TV, the latter had the late show with Howard Conder: very genuine and approachable.

I thank God that British perceptions of the Christian faith are probably more heavily determined by exposure to things like the Royal Wedding than they are from the Popoff brigade who should go and do precisely that! 

Talking of popping off, I go to New York on Sunday for ten days to meet people in the Episcopal Church. Should the bishop of New York, Catherine Roskam, offer me a green handkerchief as I sniff my way through Cathedral services (my hayfever has started with gusto already) I will be nicely reassured by our liturgical rejoinders and choral hymns, no doubt and pop up a prayer for Popoff who probably gives less than two hoots about the rest of us as he relaxes in green satin and asks his entourage to stuff smaller green squares of the stuff into glossy envelopes.